I know I have more than one or two plugins, so why does the number next to “Plugins” on my WordPress Dashboard not reflect the five, six, ten, twelve plugins on my blog? That confused me too, until I did a little research.

When you see the orange number next to your word “Plugins,” it simply means that’s the number of plugins that have updates available. Click on “Plugins,” and you’ll see a yellow band at the bottom of the plugin and/or plugins that need to be updated.

You can choose to download the plugin or to update automatically. I usually just update automatically. It saves time. However, you may want to download the plugin and update automatically, especially if you have a folder where you keep all your plugins in case you have to reload one or more and they aren’t available in the WordPress Extend directory anymore. You may also decide to use that particular plugin on another of your blogs, and  you’ll have it downloaded to your personal storage for quick access.

MAKE SURE TO BACKUP YOUR BLOG BEFORE UPDATING ANY PLUGINS. Most often, this is an unecessary precaution, but the one time you should have backed up and you didn’t, thinking “It’ll be OK,” will be the one time it’s not OK. Don’t take chances with your content. Make sure to create a backup before you update plugins, themes or even the WordPress application itself. All my blogs use the WordPress Database Backup, which can be found in the WordPress Extend directory.