Ultimate Web Hosting Statistics and Market Share Report (2022)

Are you looking for the latest web hosting statistics and market share information?

Web hosting is one of the key parts of every successful website. By understanding the hosting market and all of the major players, you can choose the best provider for your WordPress website.

In this article, we’ve gathered tons of web hosting statistics and market share information.

Ultimate List of Web Hosting Statistics

We’ve divided this list of web hosting statistics into several different categories. You can use the links below to jump to the section you’re most interested in.

• Global Web Hosting Services Market Size in 2022
• Global Web Hosting Market Share in 2022
• Domain Registration Statistics
• Shared Hosting Stats (Including Average Cost of Web Hosting)
• VPS Hosting Stats (Including Hosting Costs Per Month)
• Dedicated Hosting Stats (Including Web Hosting Market Size)
• Most Popular Web Server Software Stats
• AWS Web Hosting Market Share
• GoDaddy Hosting Market Share
• Namecheap Pricing and Web Hosting Statistics
• Hostinger Web Hosting Market Share
• WP Engine Group (Managed WordPress Usage Statistics)
• HostGator Web Hosting Statistics
• Bluehost Pricing and Web Hosting Statistics
• Shopify Hosting Stats
• Squarespace Web Hosting Stats

Global Web Hosting Services Market Size in 2022

• The global web hosting market is projected to grow to $267.10 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate of 18%.
• In 2020, the global market was valued at $75 billion.
• Web hosting is expected to generate $79.25 billion in revenue in 2022.
• By 2027, it’s predicted that the web hosting space will generate $144.40 billion.
• According to experts, the growing number of small and medium businesses is the biggest factor driving the industry’s growth.
• Market share differs dramatically depending on location. While Amazon rules the US market with a 3.9% share, in Germany the most popular web hosting provider is 1and1 (18.29%), while in Italy Aruba has an impressive 30.71% market share. Similarly, the most popular cloud hosting provider in the United States is Amazon (31%) but the Google Cloud platform has the biggest share of India’s cloud computing market (39%).

No matter whether you run an online store, a nonprofit organization, or an affiliate marketing business, every organization needs a website. That means a big demand for web hosting.

In fact, at the start of 2022, there were around 1.8 billion live websites and over 5.1 billion internet users.

When you consider the stats, we can see that web hosting is a billion-dollar industry that’s only going to grow in the future.

Global Web Hosting Market Share in 2022

• In 2020, the North American web hosting industry was valued at $34.32 billion.
• Experts predict that the United States will have the largest market share right up until 2026, with Europe forecast to have the second biggest market share.
• In 2022, analysts predict the United States will generate the largest web hosting revenue ($5,832 million). In second place is the UK, which is predicted to generate $5,832 million, followed by Japan ($5,666 million), China ($4,930 million), and Germany ($4,435 million).
• Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR throughout 2021-2028, with the market in the Asia Pacific expected to reach $2.5 billion by 2026.
• Experts also predict that the Middle East and Africa will show steady growth in the web hosting space due to an increasing focus on digitization.
• China is forecast to reach an estimated market size of $16.9 billion in the year 2026, with a CAGR of 15.6% for the period 2021-2026.

The Asia Pacific region is expected to grow rapidly throughout 2021-2026. Experts say this is due to the growing popularity of online platforms and improved connectivity in the region.

Governments have also invested lots of money in small and medium enterprises, startups, and side businesses, which is fueling the growth in web hosting. For example, in 2019 the Chinese government announced a special investment of $894 million for small and medium enterprises, and in 2020 it invested $140 million into developing more startups.

With that being said, we expect to see the number of websites continue to grow. By investing so much money into startups and small businesses, governments in the Asia Pacific region are creating a huge demand for web hosting in these areas.

Domain Registration Statistics

• A domain name typically costs $10–$15 per year, although the most expensive publicly reported sale was carinsurance.com, which sold for $49.7 million.
• GoDaddy has over 78 million registered domains, which gives them a 12.77% share of all registered domains. That makes GoDaddy the world’s most popular domain registrar.
• Namecheap is GoDaddy’s closest competitor with over 17 million registered domains. This gives it a 2.87% share of all registered domain names and makes Namecheap the second most popular domain registrar.
• 37.20% of domains are top-level domains (TLDs).

Choosing the best domain name for your website is crucial, and many sites even use a domain name generator to pick the perfect domain, fast.

Once you’ve chosen a domain, the next step is to properly register that domain name.

The good news is that many of the top web hosting providers are also domain name registrars, so you can often get a domain and hosting from the same provider.

Interestingly, GoDaddy is both the most popular web hosting provider and the most popular domain registrar, which suggests a lot of people choose to use the same company. Since it’s such a popular choice, we expect to see more web hosting companies also offering domain registration in the future.

If you haven’t purchased a domain name yet, then please see our expert pick of the best domain registrars.

Shared Hosting Stats (Including Average Cost of Web Hosting)

• Shared hosting plans typically cost between $2.51-$4.63 per month.
• On average, an entry-level shared hosting plan will cost $2.5 –$3.72 per month.
• Typically, you can expect to pay between $4.63–$6.52 per month for mid-tiered shared web hosting.
• Experts predict that the shared hosting market will grow at 15% CAGR and reach $72.2 billion by 2026.
• 75% of the websites on a shared hosting plan use GoDaddy.

Shared hosting is where multiple websites share a server. By hosting several sites on the same server, web hosting companies can reduce their costs and offer hosting at a lower price, as the stats show.

To help you decide whether shared hosting is right for you, we’ve published this guide on the real truth about the best shared web hosting services.

VPS Hosting Stats (Including Hosting Costs Per Month)

• You can typically expect to pay between $13.41-$21.89 per month for VPS hosting.
• Entry-level VPS hosting costs $13.41–$15.57 per month.
• For mid-range VPS hosting, the average cost is $21.89–$25.17. However, when publishing these figures researchers pointed out that the range is skewed by a small number of premium service providers.
• 21% of the websites on a VPS hosting plan use GoDaddy.

Similar to shared hosting, VPS hosting runs multiple sites on the same server. However, VPS uses powerful virtualization technology to create a digital barrier between each site. This gives customers guaranteed access to a percentage of the server’s resources. They also have greater control over how their server is set up.

As we can see from the web hosting statistics, extra flexibility, security, and improved performance come at a cost. On average, even entry-level VPS plans are noticeably more expensive than shared hosting.

To help you choose the right VPS hosting plan for your budget, we’ve created a guide to the best VPS hosting.

Dedicated Hosting Stats (Including Web Hosting Market Size)

• In 2021, dedicated hosting had 25.5% of the global web hosting services market.
• Dedicated hosting is predicted to grow at 11.1% CAGR throughout 2021-2026.
• GoDaddy is the most popular dedicated hosting provider. When we look at all the sites that are known to use dedicated hosting, 35% of those websites use GoDaddy.

Dedicated hosting is where a single customer has private access to an entire server. Dedicated hosting plans are mainly used by big websites that get lots of visitors and need a high level of performance and security.

Dedicated plans are expensive, but they’re not the only way to create a top-notch website.

For example, if you’re using WordPress then there are lots of ways to boost WordPress speed and performance. Plus, you can use security plugins to help protect your site.

Most Popular Web Server Software Stats

• Nginx is used by 34.2% of all websites whose web server is known, making it the most popular server technology. Alipay, TikTok, and Zoom all use Nginx.
• 31.2% of all the websites with a known web server use Apache. Some big names that use Apache hosting services include eBay, Spotify, Dropbox, and Salesforce.
• 21.6% of all websites with a known web server rely on Cloudflare Server. This includes some big names such as Zoom, Indeed, Etsy, Discord, and Fiverr.

The web hosting stats show that over 50% of all websites use open-source server software.

Open source gives you the freedom to use, change, extend, and redistribute software without having to pay anything. Immediately, open source helps you run a website for less and creates a sense of community and collaboration that benefits everyone who uses the software. With that being said, it’s not surprising that it’s one of the major hosting trends.

As well as open-source server software, almost half of the web (43%) uses the WordPress open-source content management system. It’s clear that in 2022, the world wide web runs on open source.

For more details about open source and WordPress, you can check out our guides on why WordPress is free and how much it really costs to build a WordPress website.

AWS Web Hosting Market Share

• Over 57 million websites use Amazon as their hosting provider.
• 6.2% of all websites use Amazon as their host, which gives Amazon Web Services (AWS) the biggest share of the web hosting industry.
• Some of Amazon’s most well-known customers are Reddit, Netflix, TikTok, Twitch, Zoom, and eBay, plus Amazon themselves.
• Out of the top 1 million websites, 22.23% use Amazon as their provider.
• 41.08% of the top 100K websites use AWS, plus 53.76% of the top 10k websites.

Amazon has the largest market share and is also clearly a favorite among high-traffic sites.

This popularity could be down to Amazon’s reputation, as they’re known to provide robust and scalable hosting to some of the biggest companies in the world.

In fact, Netflix alone uses over 100,000 Amazon server instances to deliver high-resolution videos to their customers.

GoDaddy Hosting Market Share

• Despite the name, the GoDaddy Group owns several web hosting providers including Host Europe and Media Template. When we look at the entire GoDaddy Group, 3.9% of all websites use one of the company’s hosting providers.
• GoDaddy is the Group’s most popular brand. Out of all the sites that use the GoDaddy Group, 78.5% choose GoDaddy as their web host.
• Over 41 million websites use GoDaddy’s data centers.
• When we look at the top 1 million websites based on traffic, 2.27% use GoDaddy as their hosting provider.
• 1.76% of the top 100K websites use GoDaddy, plus 1.78% of the top 10k websites.

GoDaddy may have a mixed reputation, but it still has a big market share and hosts over 41 million websites.

This may be because of how much GoDaddy spends on marketing, as they invested over $100 million during the second quarter of 2022 alone.

However, it’s always smart to consider all your options. With that being said, you may want to see our expert pick of the best GoDaddy alternatives.

Namecheap Pricing and Web Hosting Statistics

• Over 5 million websites use Namecheap as their host, which is 1.0% of all websites.
• Out of the top 1 million websites, 0.75% use Namecheap as their hosting provider.

Namecheap is best known as a domain registrar, but they’re also a popular hosting provider since their plans are very affordable.

For example, Namecheap’s shared hosting plans start at $2.18 per month, which is low when compared to the shared hosting average of $2.51-$4.63.

As we’ve previously seen, Namecheap is also the second most popular domain registrar. For website owners who want to buy their domain and hosting from the same company, this makes Namecheap an attractive choice.

Hostinger Web Hosting Market Share

• Over 1 million websites use Hostinger as their provider, which is 1.3% of all websites.
• Out of the top 1 million websites, 0.5% use Hostinger as their hosting provider.

Hostinger may not have a huge share of the high-traffic market, but they have a significant slice of the wider web hosting market.

This is likely because they offer affordable, all-in-one hosting packages complete with 24/7 live chat support, managed automatic updates, a free CDN service, and free site migration. They also have a 1-click installer that makes it easy to install WordPress plus other popular software.

For a detailed look at Hostinger’s strong points and weak points, you can check out our expert Hostinger review.

WP Engine Group (Managed WordPress Usage Statistics)

• 2.2% of all websites use one of WP Engine Group’s brands as their hosting provider.
• 81.5% of all sites that use WP Engine Group, choose WPEngine as their provider.
• Flywheel is used by 18.5% of all websites that use the WP Engine Group.
• Some of WP Engine Group’s biggest customers include Indeed, Udemy, SoundCloud, and Mozilla.

WP Engine is one of the world’s leading managed WordPress hosting providers, used by 2.2% of all websites.

A managed hosting plan is perfect for busy website owners who want to avoid time-consuming admin tasks.

With its advanced security features, protection against DDoS attacks, and built-in CDN in partnership with MaxCDN, WP Engine is powerful enough to support larger businesses such as Mozilla and SoundCloud.

For more information, please see our expert review of WP Engine.

HostGator Web Hosting Statistics

• HostGator is part of the Newfold Digital Group, which was formerly known as the Endurance International Group. HostGator is the company’s most popular web hosting provider. In fact, HostGator is used by 30.8% of all websites that use a Newfold Digital Group brand.
• HostGator is used by 1.4% of all websites.
• Over 960,000 sites rely on Hostinger as their hosting provider.

With 1-click WordPress installation, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and 24/7 support, it’s easy to see why HostGator is used by 1.4% of all websites.

They also offer shared hosting, Virtual Private Server hosting, dedicated hosting servers, and managed WordPress hosting plans, so website owners can choose the plan that works the best for them.

To see whether HostGator is right for you, check out our expert review of HostGator.

Bluehost Pricing and Web Hosting Statistics

• Bluehost is also part of the Newfold Digital Group and is the company’s second most popular hosting provider. Bluehost is used by 27.4% of all websites that use a Newfold Digital Group brand.
• Over 2 million websites are hosted on Bluehost, which is 1.2% of all websites.
• Out of the top 1 million websites based on traffic, just 0.39% use Bluehost.

Bluehost is an affordable hosting provider, especially when compared to the average prices we’ve seen earlier.

WPBeginner readers can get a 60% off discount with Bluehost. You can purchase a shared plan for just $2.75 per month, which is at the lower end of the $2.51-$4.63 average. Plus, it comes with a free domain name!

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

These affordable prices may explain why Bluehost is used by 2 million websites. As well as offering low prices, Bluehost is one of the few hosts officially recommended by WordPress.

To learn more about Bluehost, you can see an in-depth Bluehost review from our experts.

Shopify Hosting Stats

• Almost 4 million websites use Shopify as their hosted solution.
• In 2020, Shopify’s market share was just 1.8%, but by 2022 it was 4.4%. That’s an increase of 2.6% in just 2 years.

Shopify is a popular website builder, similar to Wix and Squarespace. Shopify has seen rapid growth from a 0.4% share of the web hosting market in 2016 to 4.4% in 2022. This is likely due to the rising popularity of online shopping, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With physical shops closed around the world, many businesses needed to create an online store, fast. As a fully hosted eCommerce platform, Shopify saw good conversion rates and lots of new customers during the pandemic.

However, Shopify does force you to use its Shopify Payment platform. If you want to use a different payment processing solution, then you’ll need to pay an extra 2% transaction fee which is very high compared to other eCommerce platforms.

With that in mind, we may see Shopify’s growth slow as store owners start to look for more affordable Shopify alternatives. For example, we’re starting to see more people move from Shopify to WooCommerce.

Squarespace Web Hosting Stats

• Over 4 million websites use Squarespace as their hosting solution, which means 2% of all websites use Squarespace.
• When we look at the 1 million sites based on traffic, 0.69% of them use Squarespace.
• 1.36% of the top 100k websites use Squarespace, plus 3.16% of the top 10k sites.

Similar to Shopify, Squarespace’s market share has grown very quickly. In 2016, Squarespace had just 0.3% of the market, but by 2022 it had 2.0%.

Despite this, today only a small percentage of the top 1 million sites use Squarespace. This could be because Squarespace forces customers to use its built-in drag and drop builder which can be restrictive.

Bigger organizations are more likely to choose a flexible hosting plan and open-source CMS such as WordPress, rather than a hosted solution and restrictive web builder.

For more information, you can see our guide on Square vs. WordPress – which one is better?

Sources:

Internet Live Stats, Internet World Stats, GoDaddy, Global Industry Analysts, Fortune Business Insights, W3Techs, Statista, BuiltWith, Domain Name Stat, AWS.

We hope this ultimate web hosting statistics and market share report will help you find the best hosting provider for your website. You may also want to see our research on the latest blogging statistics as well as new marketing trends and stats.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Ultimate Web Hosting Statistics and Market Share Report (2022) first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 07, 2022 at 03:30PM

How to Create a Coupon Popup in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to create a coupon popup on your WordPress website?

Coupon popups are a great way to convert your website visitors into paying customers. There are several different ways to create and display coupon popups. However, showing the coupon at the right time makes a huge difference in converting abandoning visitors into customers.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how to add a coupon popup to your WordPress or WooCommerce site.

Why Should You Offer Visitors a Coupon?

Often new business owners are concerned that coupons will eat into their profits. However, established business owners know that offering discounts is a powerful way to get visitors to make up their minds instead of sitting on the fence.

Offering coupon codes helps you recover abandoned cart sales, convert visitors into customers, and make more sales.

Most eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce allow you to easily create coupon codes. However, sharing these coupon codes with your customers makes all the difference.

That’s why in this article, we will share two different ways to share coupons with your visitors. These include a coupon exit popup and a coupon spin-a-wheel optin.

Let’s take a look at how to create a coupon popup in WordPress or WooCommerce.

How to Create Your Coupon Popup in WordPress

The best way to create a coupon popup is by using OptinMonster. It is the best WordPress popup plugin and lead generation software in the market.

First, you need to visit the OptinMonster website to create an account. Simply click the ‘Get OptinMonster Now’ button to get started.

You will need at least the Growth plan because it includes Coupon Wheel Campaigns and advanced targeting rules for your popups.

After that, you need to install and activate the OptinMonster plugin on your WordPress site. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

The plugin acts as a connector between your OptinMonster account and your WordPress website.

Upon activating the plugin, you’ll see the OptinMonster setup wizard. Go ahead and click on the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button.

A new window will now open where you’ll need to connect your WordPress site with OptinMonster.

Simply click the ‘Connect to WordPress’ button to continue.

You can also connect your WooCommerce store with OptinMonster. Just make sure that you’ve set up an eCommerce store in WordPress.

First, you will need to go to OptinMonster » Settings from your WordPress admin panel.

Afterward, head to the ‘General’ tab and click on the ‘Auto-Generate Keys + Connect WooCommerce’ button.

WooCommerce will now generate keys automatically and connect to your OptinMonster account.

Now, you are all set to create your first coupon popup campaign.

Creating Your Coupon Popup Campaign

To create a campaign, you can go to OptinMonster » Campaigns from your WordPress dashboard and then click the ‘Create Your First Campaign’ button.

On the next screen, OptinMonster will show different campaign types and templates.

First, you’ll need to choose a campaign type. We’re going to use ‘Popup,’ which should be the default selection.

After that, you will be asked to select a template.

OptinMonster has a vast range of templates you can choose from, with lots of different layouts and color schemes. The ‘Coupon’ template is perfect for creating this popup. Although, you can select a different template if you prefer.

You can use the search box to find the Coupon template or scroll down the page.

Next, hover over the template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

The final step before building your coupon popup is to name the campaign. After entering a name, click the ‘Start Building’ button.

Designing your Coupon Popup

Once you’ve clicked ‘Start Building,’ you’ll see the drag-and-drop campaign builder.

You can use it to add different blocks to your template and change the text, colors, and design of the coupon in whatever way you like.

You can also click on any element of the design to change it further. Here, we’ve edited the text and made it a different color.

As soon as you make your changes, you’ll see real-time updates in the coupon popup template.

You might want to experiment with different fonts and colors to make your text stands out in the popup or matches your brand.

Outside of the text and elements within the popup, you can also change the background color, add an image to your coupon, set the border color, change the border style, and more.

Once you’re done with the changes, please ensure you store your campaign by clicking the green ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen.

Decide How to Deliver Your Coupon Code

Now that you’ve set up your coupon popup, you need to decide how you’ll actually deliver the coupon code to your visitor.

There are several ways to do this in OptinMonster, but the best way is to deliver the coupon code straight away through OptinMonster’s Success view and send it by email newsletter.

That way, if the visitor isn’t ready to buy immediately, they’ve got the coupon code in their email inbox for easy reference later.

By default, your coupon popup is already designed to use ‘the Success view’ as soon as the button is clicked. To check, you can click on the button and then see the ‘Go to View’ option on the left-hand side of your screen.

If you want a different button action, you can change that here. For your first coupon, though, we recommend sticking with the default.

Integrating OptinMonster With Your Email List

To send your coupon code out by email automatically and for the visitor to be added to your email list, you’ll need to integrate OptinMonster with an email marketing service.

Constant Contact is a great service to use with OptinMonster, and WPBeginner readers can get 20% off their first 3 months by using this coupon.

However, if you use a different email service, OptinMonster integrates with pretty much every major provider.

Simply go to the ‘Integration’ tab and click the ‘+ Add New Integration’ button to add your email marketing service.

Once you’ve done that, you can set up an automated email to go out whenever someone signs up for the email list through your coupon popup.

Bonus Tip: Edit the Success View Template

You can view and change the ‘Success View’ template by going back to the Design tab of your campaign and clicking the ‘Sucess’ option at the bottom of the screen.

The default looks like this, but you can edit it in any way you want, just like you edited your coupon popup.

Change Your Coupon Popup’s Display Rules

By default, your coupon popup will appear to visitors after they’ve been on any page of your site for 5 seconds.

If you want to change this, go to the ‘Display Rules’ tab.

You can set whatever display rules you like, but a great one to try out is Exit-Intent®.

This special OptinMonster technology can tell when a visitor is about to leave your site and show them your coupon popup at just the right moment.

You can add exit intent by selecting the ‘exit detected’ from the dropdown menu and choosing which devices to show the campaign on. By default, it will be set to display on all devices.

There is also an option to control the sensitivity of exit intent.

After that, scroll down and choose the pages where you’d like to show your campaign.

For example, you can use the default setting of ‘current URL path’ and select the ‘is any page’ option. This way, your campaign will appear on your entire website.

After adding the display rules, you can click the ‘Next Step’ button.

OptinMonster also offers options to play a sound effect and show animation when the coupon popup appears.

Now, you can click the ‘Next Step’ button.

On the next screen, you will see a summary of your display rules. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

Once you’re happy with your coupon popup, you can go to the ‘Publish’ tab at the top.

After that, simply make sure that ‘Publish’ is checked under the ‘Publish Status’ section.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the top and close the campaign builder.

You can now visit your website to see the coupon popup in action.

Creating a Spin-to-Win Coupon Wheel

A spin-to-win coupon wheel is a great way to make your coupons more interesting and fun for your site’s visitors. It’s like a mini-game that visitors can play to win a discount or another bonus.

Your spin-to-win options could include things like 10% off, 20% off, free shipping, a free trial, or whatever you want to offer.

OptinMonster offers a ‘Gamified’ campaign type that lets you create spin-the-wheel popups.

After that, scroll down and select one of the Wheel templates.

The plugin has different spin-to-win templates. Simply hover over a template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Next, go ahead and edit any aspect of your coupon wheel.

To edit the options on the coupon wheel itself, you’ll need to click on the ‘Customize Wheel Sections’ button on the left-hand side.

You can then type in any text as the Label for each option and add in the coupon code for each winning option.

Note that the ‘Win Chance’ is automatically determined. If you change the toggle on one or more of the ‘Can Win’ options, OpinMonster will recalculate the winning chances

If you need more help creating your coupon wheel and adding it to your site, check out our post on how to add spin-to-win optins in WordPress and WooCommerce, which goes through the process in more detail.

You can then visit your website to see the spin-to-win coupon popup in action.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a coupon popup in WordPress. You might also want to look at our pick of the best WooCommerce plugins or our guide on how to add push notifications to your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Create a Coupon Popup in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 06, 2022 at 11:46PM

How to Check and Update to the Latest WordPress Version

Are you wondering if your website is using the latest version of WordPress?

With each new release, WordPress developers fix bugs, add new features, improve performance, and stay up to date with new industry standards. If you don’t keep your website up to date, then you risk your website security and miss out on new features.

In this article, we’ll show you how to check and update to the latest WordPress version.

Here are the topics we’ll cover in this article. Use the links below to jump to the section you are most interested in.

• Why You Should Always Use the Latest Version of WordPress
• How to Easily Check Your WordPress Version
• How to Check for WordPress Updates
• How to Safely Update to the Latest Version of WordPress
• How to Enable Automatic WordPress Updates
• How to Test a WordPress Update on a Staging Site
• How to Install the Latest WordPress Nightly Builds

Why You Should Always Use the Latest Version of WordPress

The most important reason to use the latest version of WordPress is improved security of your website. Since more than 43% of all websites use WordPress, it’s a common target for hackers, malicious code distributors, and data thieves.

Every time a security vulnerability is reported, the core WordPress team works diligently to release an update that fixes the issue. That makes the latest version of WordPress the most secure version.

New WordPress releases also include useful new features as well as bug fixes to old features.

Often plugin and theme developers coordinate their updates with major WordPress releases. This lets them take advantage of newly available features and enhancements. And that often means the latest version of WordPress is the most compatible.

Learn more in our guide on why you should always use the latest version of WordPress.

How to Easily Check Your WordPress Version

The first thing you need to do is login to the WordPress admin area and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Look for the phrase, ‘Thanks for creating with WordPress.’ Next to that, you will see the WordPress version number.

On the Dashboard » Home screen, you can also find your WordPress version number in the ‘At a Glance’ admin widget. In the screenshot above, we are using WordPress version 6.0.2.

Sometimes you will want to know the WordPress version of a website when you don’t have admin access. Luckily, there are other ways to check the version they are using, and you can learn about them in our guide on how to easily check which WordPress version you are using.

How to Check for WordPress Updates

You can see if a new version of WordPress is available by visiting the Dashboard » Updates page of your WordPress admin area.

If your WordPress version is up to date, then you will see a message that says you have the current version. In the screenshot below, that is version 6.0.2.

On this page, you’ll also see the timestamp when your WordPress site last checked for updates.

WordPress automatically checks for updates on a regular basis. However, you can also click the ‘Check again’ link to manually check for updates.

When a latest version of WordPress is available, you will see the message, ‘An updated version of WordPress is available.’

Under this message, you’ll find an ‘Update Now’ button. The next section will show you how to install a WordPress update.

How to Safely Update to the Latest Version of WordPress

Before you update anything, it’s important to perform a full backup of your WordPress website. You can learn the best way to do this in our guide on how to back up and restore your WordPress site.

Once you’ve done that, you can return to the Dashboard » Updates page and then click the ‘Update Now’ button you can see in the screenshot above.

WordPress will automatically put your site into maintenance mode, then fetch the latest version of the software and install it for you. You will see the update progress on your screen.

Advanced users can also update WordPress manually. You can learn how in our guide on how to safely update WordPress.

Once the WordPress update has been installed, you should visit your website to make sure everything looks right and is working.

If there are any issues, then you will need to do some troubleshooting. You might like to take a look at our list of common WordPress errors and our WordPress troubleshooting guide.

If you don’t find a way to fix the issues, then you can restore your website from the backup you created.

How to Enable Automatic WordPress Updates

When you visit the Dashboard » Updates page in your WordPress admin area, you will see the message, ‘This site is automatically kept up to date with maintenance and security releases of WordPress only.’

Because it’s best to install security updates immediately to keep your website safe, WordPress does this automatically for you. That means you can be confident your site will stay secure, even if you’re busy or away from home.

If you would like all WordPress updates to be handled the same way, then simply click the link labeled ‘Enable automatic updates for all new versions of WordPress.’

There are a few more ways to enable automatic WordPress updates, and you can learn about them in our guide on how to enable automatic updates in WordPress for major versions.

Automatic WordPress updates are convenient, but they can also lead to problems. For example, it’s possible that an update could break your site. If WordPress is updated automatically, then you may not be around to fix it, or even notice there is a problem.

That’s why it’s good to keep a little more control over your updates. You can learn how in our guide on how to better manage automatic WordPress updates.

If you decide to turn off automatic updates in the future, then simply return to the Dashboard » Updates page and click the link that says ‘Switch to automatic updates for maintenance and security releases only.’

Now major WordPress releases will not be installed automatically, only security updates which are much less likely to have conflicts that break your site.

You might like to see our guide on how to disable automatic updates in WordPress to learn additional methods. That article will even show to turn off automatic security updates, although that’s not something we generally recommend.

How to Test a WordPress Update on a Staging Site

If you’re worried about an update breaking your site, then you can test whether there are problems before installing it on your live website. You can do this with a staging site.

A staging site is a clone of your live website and should be installed on the same web hosting server. This means that if the WordPress update works correctly on the staging site, then you can be confident it will cause no problems on the live site.

Some of the best WordPress hosting companies offer 1-click staging websites. If your website is hosted with one of them, then you can easily create a staging site without any hassle.

If your hosting provider doesn’t offer this service, then you can easily create a staging site yourself. You can do so manually or use a plugin like WP Stagecoach.

We show you how to install and use a staging site in our step-by-step guide on how to easily create a staging site for WordPress.

How to Install the Latest WordPress Nightly Builds

The most up-to-date WordPress updates are called nightly builds. They should never be installed on a live website because they are still being tested for bugs.

Instead, nightly builds should be installed on a staging site or locally on your Windows or Mac computer. You can do this using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin which will automatically update your WordPress install to the latest nightly builds.

Who should install WordPress nightly builds?

Developers use nightly builds to make sure their plugins and themes will work with future versions of WordPress before they are released. If there is a problem, then they can fix their own code, or let the WordPress core developers know about any bugs they discover.

It’s also a good way to contribute to the WordPress project. Normal users without programming skills can test the nightly build and report any bugs they find. Those with programming skills can even submit code patches that fix those bugs.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to check and update the latest WordPress version. You may also want to learn how to speed up your WordPress website, or check out our list of must-have WordPress plugins to grow your site.

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The post How to Check and Update to the Latest WordPress Version first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 06, 2022 at 03:31PM