A WordPress website is rarely static. The nature of websites is to add content, revise and redesign the layouts, and add or remove features. You might experiment with different sales funnels, appointment calendars, contact forms, popups, galleries, slideshow, and any other features.
Whether you are working on your website yourself or you have different developers making changes for you, what often happens is the installed plugin directory grows and grows and grows.
But with each plugin, a little (and sometimes a lot) of code gets added to your website. This often includes codes you don’t need but creates unnecessary website bloat. Why does this matter? Because extra code will slow down your site load and impact your google page speed score. This will in turn give your website a low grade with search engines like Google, making it very difficult for your site to rank well on search engine results.
Plugins Can Cause Bigger Problem than Slow Site Speed
Perhaps you’re not really worried about SEO or Site Rankings. Your business may get most of its work through word-of-mouth referrals. I totally get that. But here’s the thing — some of the long-forgotten plugins sitting on your website could have vulnerabilities, backdoor or issues that leave your site open to malware.
Unsupported or Depreciated Plugins are Open to Malware
Plugins that are no longer supported can not only bloat your site but be a liability – leaving your Worpdress website littered with insecurities, backdoors and other vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited by Malware.
Best Way to Perform a Website Plugin Audit
- Setup a staging environment of your current site.
This duplicate will allow you to test each plugin carefully without causing any problems to the live site. Hosting providers like Kinsta (which I’m an affiliate for) have easy 1-click staging setups. - Delete any inactive plugins, then check the site is working as expected.
- Deactivate any plugins you are sure are not in use. After each deactivation, check the front end of the website is functioning as expected.
- Research any remaining plugins – you’ll discover if the plugin is still supported, what the current version should be, and any other relevant details.
- Update plugins, remove unsupported plugins. You may have to find a new plugin to replace the functionality of the unsupported plugin. Check the frontend of the website after each plugin change.
- Review the site in detail – test all forms, click on all pages, compare the layout of each staging site page to the live site. Adjust css code, etc as needed.
- Push the staging site live.
Is Your WordPress Website in Need of a Plugin Audit?
Drop Contento Interactive an email to schedule a plugin audit today.