The Main Page is usually updated by editing a number of pages in the Template namespace that are transcluded onto the main page. The only section that is currently hard-coded directly on page is the top "Welcome to Wikipedia" banner. The Main Page and all the templates used on it have been protected for many years, and can only be edited by administrators. Images and templates are also temporarily protected while they are featured on the Main Page via cascading protection. Changes can be suggested on Talk:Main Page if you do not have administrator access.

Alternatively, you can edit the table-free version of the main page. Also see Wikipedia:Main Page alternatives for more editable main pages.

Each section has its own guidelines that you should follow before editing it. These guidelines will be found on that section's talk pages, on Talk:Main Page, or on other guidelines pages.

Today's featured article, Today's featured picture, and the On This Day sections automatically update every midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The Today's featured list section currently only appears on Mondays and Fridays. The Did you know section is updated every twelve hours (at 00:00 and 12:00 UTC) or twenty four hours (at 00:00 UTC). The In the news section is usually updated in real time as needed.

Click the Main Page cache purge whenever a change has been made to any of the template pages displayed on the Main Page. This clears the Main Page's cache (located on the Wikimedia servers) so that non-logged-in users can see the update.

The guidelines that were written for the old main page can be found at Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page.