Have you ever clicked on a WordPress plugin update notification, only to find that no updates are available? Did you receive an email from your website stating that a plugin couldn’t be updated? These are common issues with the WordPress update system, but why do they happen?
Bundled premium plugins are the most common cause.
Many WordPress themes include premium plugins, that would normally add an additional cost, for you to use on your website for free (or included in the cost of your theme). Bundling these plugins with a theme can make the theme much more attractive when you’re picking out a starting point for your website. Offering multiple bundled premium plugins can save you $100’s since you don’t have to purchase them separately. For example, I recently purchased a theme for $39 and it included $183 of premium plugins that we used and would have had to purchase separately.
Since most need to be registered, premium plugins included in WordPress themes usually can’t be updated through the standard update process. Once a developer updates their premium plugin, the theme developer needs to include the update with a theme update. The time between plugin update and theme update, is when you’ll see these phantom plugin update notifications. Basically, WordPress knows there’s an update for the plugin, but it’s not available for your website.
What can you do?
In most cases, you don’t need to do anything. If you choose a theme by a good developer, the theme’s plugin updates will usually happen a week or two after the plugin developer updates the plugin. If you want to keep your plugins as up to date as possible, you would have to purchase the premium plugin separately and register it through your site (usually with a serial number), which would allow the plugin to update through the normal update process.