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Keeping Your Website Updated

In the early days of the web we hand-coded every site and there were lots of static HTML files, then we started to add styling in a separate CSS file, and finally we added interactivity with Javascript files. As Content Management Systems (CMS) appeared like WordPress, the idea was to re-use common sections of your website like the Header, Footer, Sidebar and Content areas, so using a programming language like PHP was used. The PHP language is constantly being improved, so that means that there are versions, and sometimes your website may be using an older version of the PHP language, so in WordPress you will see a warning dialog like this one:

 

The way to update the PHP version is to login at your web hosting vendor, and browse around the Control Panel to find out where they allow PHP versions to be changed. My favorite web hosting company is ionos.com and when I login the first click is on: Hosting

Next, I select which hosting package, because I’m a web developer I do hosting for several clients:

In the control panel I select: PHP

Finally, I select which domain should have a PHP version updated.

It’s a best practice to keep your PHP version updated to the latest supported version in order to get the best performance and security benefits. Older versions of PHP are being phased out, and a CMS like WordPress will simply alert you when your PHP version is too old.

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