WordPress Quarterly/Half-Yearly Maintenance Checklist
- Change passwords. Change your password, and have other users change theirs too. Don’t make it easy for hackers—use a strong password.
- Minimize admin users. Delete or downgrade unnecessary admin users (and delete the default admin username). Hacked admin accounts can do the most damage to your site, so minimize the number.
- Delete unused plugins and themes. Deactivate and delete all unnecessary plugins and themes, though never remove the latest default WordPress theme. Unnecessary plugins increase your website’s overhead and the risk of vulnerabilities.
- Delete unnecessary files Website clutter can hide vulnerabilities. Check for unnecessary files in your wp-content folder and browse through your Media Library to remove any images, videos and audio files you no longer require. You can use a plugin like Delete Not Used Image or Media Cleaner to automatically remove unreferenced images. Perform a backup before deleting anything!
- Fix dead links. You don’t want your visitors receiving a “Page Not Found” error when clicking on a link. Find any dead links by using a link checking tool like Broken Link Checker or Link Checker.
- Veryify your contact form. Send yourself a message using your website’s contact form, and make sure you get it.
- Optmimize your database. Delete any draft posts you’ll never finish, and empty your comment spam. Then optimize your database by running a plugin like WP-Optimize, Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions or WP-DBManager.
- Speed audit. Use Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights to see how fast your site loads. If it takes more than five seconds, consider implementing caching and other measures to speed up your site. Slow sites lose visitors and search rankings.
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