Blogging does make you learn a lot of things. For e.g. I had no knowledge about making a website. Now, I feel that I am too familiar with WordPress and have created a lot of websites for my friends and known. Today, I woke up and checked my dashboard. I got an unusual warning saying that “PHP update required”. I saw this warning in the Dashboard once I upgraded to WordPress 5.1 “PHP Update Required, WordPress has detected that your site is running on an insecure version of PHP“.
Let us understand, what is PHP & why PHP update required?
PHP is the coding language of WordPress and they always recommend us to update it to the newest version to ensure the speed and security of our websites. I almost forgot about it until seeing that reminder. In case you are using shared hosting services, you can go to PHP Selector in cPanel to set up your PHP environment.
Varun, A blogger out in the world to make his mark.
Important things to take care of before updating PHP in WP
- Back up your Websites: Make a backup of your websites or server before updating PHP version. Although there is a little risk during the process, making a backup is still recommended.
- Login to your Cpanel of your hosting company.
- Check the current version of your PHP
- Disable PHP5 (Or whatever is your current PHP version) and enable PHP 7.3
Follow these screenshots below.
I use hosting from NameCheap, so the images are from my Cpanel. The process, however, will remain the same irrespective of the hosting provider.
All done, your WordPress websites should be running on the newest PHP version now and you won’t see the warning again in the Dashboard. The PHP update is really important and I highly recommend you to do it immediately if you haven’t done so. It does not only make your site faster for search engines and for your visitors but also make your website better protected against hackers.
