Website Disasters: What Can Go Wrong With Your Site?
Anyone who has a business, organization, or personal project with an online presence understands the importance of a high-quality website. Unfortunately, if you have had your site for a while, you also understand that things can go wrong and affect your ability to get attention and attract profits. Not only do these website disasters damage your bottom line, they can also stop positive forward motion that allows you to grow into a true success.
Failure to Renew Your Domain Name
Since you only renew your domain name every year, you might forget when the bill comes around again. The last thing you want to do is forget to pay and lose your URL. Domain registrars send out reminders and often allow a grace period. However, disorganization can lead to you losing your established domain far too easily. If you do let it expire, do not expect you can just pick it back up again. Someone else may swoop in and purchase it in an effort to sell it back to you for an extremely high amount of money.
Missing Hosting Account Payments
The same kind of financial issues with your hosting account can take your website off-line. Existing customers may ask or wait a few days to find out if it will come back or not, but people still considering your business will undoubtedly move on if your site vanishes.
Hosting Server Changes and Updates
Even if you remember to pay all your bills, your website may still go off-line if your hosting server or account changes how it functions or the services or options it provides. Again, you should get email messages far in advance to make all necessary updates or changes. If you ignore these or miss them somehow in your spam or junk folder, you will have a very difficult time getting your website active again.
Failure to Update CMS or Site Elements
If your website is built on WordPress or another CMS, you must make regular updates to stay active and secure. The same thing goes for any type of external site elements like plug-ins, widgets, frameworks, and more. Not only can you affect the look and feel of your site quite seriously, but missing updates leaves you vulnerable to one of the most serious potential website disasters of all.
Virus and Hacker Attacks
Just like your computer can get attacked by viruses and hackers, so can your website. The bad guys use automated programs to seek out vulnerabilities so they can infiltrate your website and inject their infections for their own nefarious purposes. If this happens, you may need professional help to get rid of it. The worst-case scenario would involve a complete tear down and rebuild of your website.
