Websites require some degree of upkeep, especially popular, dynamic sites like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, because important new versions containing security patches are released. Other database applications such as e-commerce, forums, photo galleries, or memberships should also be monitored for security risk.
The code that makes your website possible is invisible to most visitors, but it is not invisible to malicious programmers and bots probing sites for weaknesses. If code is neglected it can create security issues, just like software running on your computer – you wouldn’t want to run WIndows 98 today, yet some website software is running many versions behind. It is important to make sure that everything runs smoothly “under the hood” as well as in the browser by keeping it up to date.
If you have a static HTML website, it may be less prone to hacking if the server password is strong, but it is important to keep the content updated and fresh so visitors return to your site often. Useful information, good links, contests and promotions are just some ways to get traffic to your door and website.
Other Considerations for Website Maintenance
- If your hosting or domain expire and you forget to renew, your website will disappear and someone else will be able to buy the domain.
- Situations may arise which require your website be rebuilt from a backup, or from scratch at a much larger cost. A back up of the current site is necessary to ensure peace of mind.
- If your website is hacked, your hosting account is usually suspended and your website will not be accessible until the issue is resolved.
- Your hosting account will be suspended if you reach your bandwidth or storage quota so these should also be monitored or assessed.
Investing in website maintenance is very similar to investing in vehicle or home maintenance – money well spent to keep problems to a minimum and increase the asset value.
Maintenance Package Investment Pays Off!
There are all sorts of nasty bots and programmers out there causing havoc to our computers, phones and websites.
Luckily, this problem, “50,000 Sites Hacked Through WordPress Plug-In Vulnerability” didn’t affect any of my WordPress clients, which is a good thing because very few have a Maintenance Package.
Very recently there was a major critical security flaw in Drupal 7 which affected over 1 million websites, two of which were clients.
“Drupal Sites Had “Hours” To Patch Before Attacks Started” It was so malicious it required that all sites be scratched if there was no back up prior to October 15.
“Unfortunately for the sites affected, recovering from a breach is not easy. Website administrators would first have to take the site down, recover a backup from a date prior to October 15, completely clean the server software, reinstall and patch Drupal, and then restore the software.”
And worse still:
Simply updating to Drupal 7.32 will not remove backdoors.
All Drupal clients have Maintenance Packages and their websites were restored to the October 13 version, then patched and upgraded from there – they were spared all of this behind-the-scenes drama unfolding, which would not have been the case if they had not invested in a Maintenance Package.