A website isn't finished on the day it goes live: like a vehicle or a machine, it needs regular servicing. Website maintenance is ongoing work covering security updates, backups, certificate and domain renewals, speed and up-to-date content. In this guide we explain why it matters and what to check regularly, with a checklist you can follow.
What happens to a site that isn't maintained?
A neglected site rarely breaks down all at once; problems build up quietly. The contact form stops working after an update and nobody notices. The SSL certificate expires and visitors are met with a security warning in their browser. A vulnerability in a plugin that was never updated can lead to the site being used to spread malware or send spam.
The cost isn't only technical. A buyer who can't send a quote request, a guest who can't make a booking or a customer stuck at the payment step often won't try again. Regular website maintenance is the most economical way to prevent these losses: fixing a problem after it surfaces is almost always more work and more expense.
Security updates and backups
Security is the most important part of website maintenance. Every part of your site gets updates from time to time: the content management system, plugins, software libraries, the server's operating system and the database. Many of these are released to close security holes, and once a vulnerability is made public, sites that haven't been updated become easy targets for automated attacks.
Try updates in a test environment before applying them to the live site, so you catch incompatibilities before visitors do. Remove unused plugins and old user accounts, and protect admin logins with strong passwords and, where possible, two-step verification.
Backups are your safety net when something goes wrong. For a good backup routine:
- Back up both files and the database regularly and automatically.
- Keep at least one copy of your backups away from the server the site runs on.
- Take an extra backup before any major update or change.
- Test restoring from a backup now and then; you can't know whether an untested backup will work.
SSL certificate and domain renewals
An SSL certificate lets your site load securely over HTTPS. Certificates have a set validity period, and industry decisions keep making it shorter. So rather than renewing by hand, it is safer to use automatic renewal and to monitor that renewal actually happens. Tracking certificates and domains is the easiest part of website maintenance to forget.
A lapsed domain is a much bigger problem: your site and the company email addresses on that domain both stop working, and an expired domain cannot always be recovered. Check these three points:
- Is the domain registered in your company's name?
- Is auto-renewal switched on, and is the payment method on file still valid?
- Do reminder emails go to an address someone still reads?
Speed, links and search visibility
Sites slow down over time. High-resolution images, a growing pile of plugins and newly added scripts quietly lengthen load times. Measure your site's speed regularly with Google's PageSpeed Insights and the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console, and look into the cause when things get worse. Make speed a regular item on your website maintenance list rather than a one-off test.
Broken links hurt both visitors and search engines. Without a permanent redirect for a deleted product or a page whose address has changed, visitors land on an error page. Search Console reports pages it can't find on your site and content that hasn't been indexed; checking these reports regularly helps you spot problems early. We cover other aspects of search visibility in our post what is SEO and how does it work.
Forms, email and up-to-date content
The part of your site that brings in the most business is often the contact or quote form. Fill in your forms yourself at regular intervals and check that messages reach the right address without landing in spam. For emails sent from your site to be delivered, your domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records need to be set up correctly.
Keeping content current is also part of website maintenance. An old phone number, changed opening hours, a product you no longer make or an announcement from years ago makes the site look abandoned. Things to check:
- Address, phone number, email and opening hours: do they match your Google Business Profile?
- Are your product, service, team and client pages up to date?
- Do your privacy notice under data protection law (such as GDPR in the EU or KVKK in Turkey) and your cookie policy reflect the tools actually used on the site?
- If you run an online store, are your terms of sale, returns policy and shipping information current?
We recommend reviewing legal texts against the rules that apply to you with a legal adviser. You will find topics specific to online stores in our post on how to launch an online store.
Maintenance plan: what to do and when
Tying website maintenance to a schedule stops tasks being forgotten. Intervals may vary with the size of your site, but the plan below is a good starting point for most sites.
It is also worth setting up an uptime monitoring tool that checks whether the site is reachable at all times, so you hear about an outage from an alert, not a customer.
Every week
- Confirm that automatic backups have run.
- Check for pending security updates.
- Open the site on a phone and a computer and make sure the main pages work.
Every month
- Test the forms and check that incoming messages arrive.
- Review the error and indexing reports in Search Console.
- Repeat the speed test, and clear out unused plugins and accounts.
Once a year
- Review domain, certificate and hosting terms and their renewal settings.
- Check legal texts, content and admin panel users from start to finish.
- Run a test restore from a backup.
Common mistakes
- Treating website maintenance as something you only think about when a problem appears.
- Keeping backups only on the server the site runs on.
- Applying updates directly to the live site without testing them.
- Not changing admin passwords for years and leaving former employees' accounts active.
- Leaving domain and hosting accounts in the name of an employee or a former supplier rather than the company.
Make maintenance a regular habit
Website maintenance only works when it is done regularly. If someone in-house is responsible, put in writing what is checked, when and by whom. If you work with a team, agree from the start what maintenance covers, where backups are kept and how quickly you get a response when something goes wrong. If you are planning a new site, our post on how to plan a company website covers decisions that make maintenance easier.
If you would like to entrust your site's hosting and maintenance to the team that knows it best, explore our hosting and maintenance service, or reach us through our contact page to review where your site stands today.