About to get really technical in this post but don’t worry, I’m gonna make it super easy to follow along because that’s how we do it here. So what are we talking about in this post, we’re talking about upgrading your PHP version.
Table of Contents
PHP :
There’s a thing called PHP that makes your website work and there’s different version numbers of it and depending on how old your web hosting account is. You’re probably on an old version of PHP that’s alright but the only problem is you’re losing out speed benefits and the minimum version that is recommended when you use WordPress. That version number keeps increasing and you get warnings right now over half of the websites that are using WordPress are on an outdated version of PHP.
Web hosting control panels :
So in this post, I’m gonna show you how to increase it. Now there are different types of web hosting control panels, I’m gonna cover this on the most common types of hosting panels. So it’s highly likely that the hosting panel you’re gonna learns how to do it in this post. Let’s just go ahead and jump on into it.
So, I am going to tell you about the cPanel that’s the control panel. I’m going to show you how to use it step by step.
Step 1:
So firstly you have to go to the search bar and write like wpw3schools.com/cpanel.
Now the next page comes from and on that page, you have to log in to your hosting and then come to the next step.
Step 2:
So first we’re gonna take a look at cPanel we’re going to be using Name cheap but it’s a standard interface, you’re gonna see this on most web-hosting providers, it’s called cPanel although named here is so much better. So your cPanel, if you have it’s gonna look something like this and it’s super easy to upgrade your PHP version.
Step 3:
So right here it says find functions quickly type PHP and that’s going to filter out all these options.
You see right here it says select PHP version, I’ll click on that.
Step 4 :
So it’s going to take me to this interface you can see right here it says current PHP version, there’s a drop-down here and then there’s this list now. You might be asking which PHP version. What’s important though is that you know how to update it when the minimum number that you need to be running goes up.
Step 5 :
So you can see for this hosting account, I already have it on the right one but if I wanted to go to 7.3. I would just select it like that and then I would click right here it says set as current very important.
If you don’t click on this, it doesn’t save the change.
Step 6:
This is what the control panel looks like you could tell, it’s a lot more friendly. So go to websites click there and you’ll want to come down here and click where it says site tools.
Now we’re in the control panel, you’re gonna want to go down here where it says devs click right there.
Step 7 :
Then there’s the option that says PHP manager, we’ll click right there and you’ll see for this particular web hosting account I have them automatically making the PHP version decision for me not all hosts through this most don’t but hosts does.
Step 8 :
If I want to control the PHP version I could come here and I can click on the little pencil icon I can change it from manage PHP to change page version manually and you might actually have it set to change PHP version manually.
Step 9 :
So this is where you’re gonna be able to control it here on site ground here. Which happens to be cloud ways, I love their service, and here is their control panel. So you’re first gonna log in and then you’ll click on the server that you want to upgrade it on. Then you’re gonna want to come here and click where it says settings and packages then click on the tab that says packages.
Then here it is and you can see on this server, I’m not running the minimum version required for WordPress which is 7.2. I’m on 7.0 all I have to do is click on the pencil icon. I can click right here in the drop-down and choose the PHP version that I want the only problem for me here though is I have another application on here that doesn’t work with PHP 7.2.
Now I’m gonna have to do is pull off and separate my WordPress sites from the non WordPress sites on this server. So that I can run two different PHP versions and that’s going to cover most of the hosting control panels on the internet.
Step 10 :
How to change the PHP version, when it’s time to do it now inside of WordPress they have a feature that they added last year where it says site health and what’s going to end up happening is if you’re not on version 7.2 of WordPress. You’re gonna get a warning saying you’re on an outdated version as a matter of fact over time that warnings gonna come back when the minimum increases.
So right now, it’s going to be 7.2 but when they change it to 7.3. If you’re not on it, you’re gonna end up getting that warning what you want to make sure you do after you upgrade your PHP version is just test everything and make sure everything works right any well-supported plug-in or theme is going to work perfectly fine they should have made their plug-in or theme work with PHP several years ago. So they had plenty of time to do it. although sometimes we rely on a plugin that is no longer being supported in that situation. You might want to find one that’s currently being supported. So if you log into your web hosting provider to upgrade the PHP version after you check it.
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