Plesk Control panel includes feature called WordPress Toolkit, which allows you to easily deploy, update, and manage WordPress installations. WordPress Toolkit also provides an easy staging feature which you can use for updating WordPress on the development version and then import the changes to the production page. (If you plan to install other applications than WordPress, please check our application archive).
WordPress Toolkit is located in the left main menu in Plesk. If you have multiple web hosting subscriptions on the same account, you may want to to select first your subscription from the topright dropdown. Then click 'WordPress'.
Installing a new WordPress application
When 'Install WordPress' dialog opens, specify the installation path and any additional settings you prefer. If you have multiple web hosting subscriptions in your account, you can choose the target domain for this installation from the dropdown menu. In some cases the installer may offer 'wordpress' as the default installation path, but you may want to clear this field - otherwise WordPress will be installed at subdirectory (i.e. www.yourdomain.tld/wordpress). Naturally, make sure that you don't have any existing websites in your domain yet, which will be overwritten.
In this dialog you can also specify a name and possible add-on package for your WordPress installation under plugin/theme set. These can be also edited and installed later, so you can leave the fields at their defaults. You can also specify WordPress administrator username and password, but this is unnecessary as you will be able to log into WordPress directly from the Plesk Control Panel. (The password can be changed later via the WordPress Toolkit, see instructions below).
You can also edit the database settings, but often there is no need for this either, as WordPress Toolkit automatically creates necessary database credentials for you. But automatic updates is something you should decide - click 'Automatic Update Settings' to see selections as follows:
In this dialog, you can choose how WordPress Updates are automated. By default, the WordPress Toolkit automatically takes care of WordPress core updates, but not plugins or themes upgrades.
If you don't want to do any WordPress updates yourself in the future, you should consider autmating all updates for security reasons. In this case, select "Yes, all (minior and major updates" and turn on the Plugins and Themes buttons below. Then WordPress Toolkit automatically updates all WordPress core, plugins, and themes as they appear. However, there is a small risk in this that some incompatibility issue may occure between updated core, plugins and themes and your website may - at worst - go down without warning. Our system notifies you by the email whenever it has made updates to the page.
If you don't want to take this risk, turn on only minior security updates (or choose 'No' to turn off all WordPress core updates). Then you must manually perform the updates yourself trough the WordPress Toolkit on regular basis. You will also in this case receive an email notification when new updates become available for you to upgrade. But with manual upgrades you can back up the WordPress site before applying any updates - and if something goes wrong revert the site from your backups.
NOTE! If you choose not to use the automatic updates, then you must regularly update your WordPress installation. If you neglect your WordPress security updates, this will soon lead to to security issues, hacking and even site closure due to vulnerabilities in outdated WordPress or its add-ons. Our system notifies you via email whenever updates are available, but ultimately the resposibility for updating is on the customer.
If you don't want to worry about the updates, also consider our SmartWP web hosting, which outsources all the WordPress core, plugins and themes updates to us.
Finally, click "Install" and WordPress will be installed to the path of your choise, typically within seconds:
After WordPress core installation is complete, you will be promted to install a few plugins and themes. If you know at this point what themes or plugins you will need, you can easily add them to your installation by selecting "Install plugins". Alternatively, you can bypass this by selecting "No, thanks" and skip this step:
