Upkeep
The part of a website nobody looks at until it breaks: updates, backups, the certificate, and the mail your domain sends.
Chrome says your website is dangerousA customer writes that their browser showed a red screen instead of your site and called it dangerous. On your own computer everything looks fine. That is no accident: it is Google Safe Browsing, a list read by Chrome, Firefox and Safari. How sites end up on it, why the owner finds out last, how to check and get off the list, and what we check ourselves.Read more
The last news item is three years oldThere is a News item in the menu with three posts under it, the newest dated three years ago. A visitor reads the date before the headline, and the date asks a question the page never answers: is this company still there? This is not a Google penalty, it is a signal to a person. Three honest options for a dead news page, and a list of the dates that make promises on your site.Read more
The website nobody updatesNothing happens to a website nobody touches, for a long time, and then everything happens at once. A walk through that time: what ages, what breaks quietly, and what your customer sees before you do.Read more
Your website is down. Now what?Friday afternoon, a customer says your site is not working, and on your own computer it works fine. What you actually do in the next ten minutes: how to check, what the error message tells you, and which of the three doors to knock on.Read more
Why your email lands in spamA message filed as spam gives you no error, no notice and no bounce. The three settings that tell the receiving side a message is really yours, and the one contact form that sends your customers' mail under a stranger's name.Read more
Repair the website or rebuild it?The question arrives as "our site looks old". That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Five questions you can answer yourself in ten minutes, and what a rebuild resets that a repair does not.Read more