WordPress maintenance.

Why WordPress ages differently

A hand-built website consists of files that stay exactly as they were put in place. A WordPress site consists of three layers that move independently of one another: the core, renewed several times a year by the WordPress foundation. The theme, which provides the appearance and comes from a vendor who may still be maintaining it — or may not. And the plugins, each of which has its own developer working at their own pace.

From that follows something uncomfortable: there is no point in time at which everything is current and stays that way. Bring everything up to date today and you will have pending updates again in four weeks. That is not a flaw in WordPress, that is how it is built. You can look after it or ignore it — but you cannot switch it off.

The number of plugins is the risk factor

A WordPress site that has grown over the years often carries twenty plugins or more. Every one of them is somebody else’s program code running on your server, and as a rule it has full access to the database — to your customer data, your enquiries, your orders.

The real problem is not the maintained ones but the abandoned ones. When a developer stops working on their plugin, it does not switch itself off. It keeps running, inconspicuously, for years. It simply stops receiving security updates — and tells nobody.

When a hole is found in such a plugin, it is published together with a description. From that day it is public knowledge, and automated programs sweep the entire internet looking for it. They are not looking for your site. They are looking for every site that has this plugin installed.

What actually goes wrong during an update

Not the white screen. That is annoying, but honest — it is noticed within ten minutes and gets repaired.

The dangerous kind is quiet: after the update the contact form no longer sends anything, but still shows the sender “Thank you for your message”. The images have disappeared from the carousel on the home page, but only on mobile. The appointment booking stops accepting enquiries without reporting it.

The reason lies in how it is built: after an update WordPress reports “Update complete”. That means files were replaced. It does not mean the site still does what it is supposed to — WordPress does not check that. And that check is precisely the work.

What happens regularly

• Backup before every intervention — files and database. With WordPress a file backup is not enough: content, settings and orders live in the database.
• Core, theme and plugins separately — one after another rather than all at once. If something jams afterwards, it is clear what caused it.
• Restore test — a backup that has never been restored is not a backup, it is a file. It gets restored as a trial run.
• Checking the form and mail path — send a test enquiry and verify it actually landed in the inbox. Not whether the thank-you page appears.
• Tracking down abandoned plugins — which ones no longer receive updates, which ones are not even active any more and are just lying around. Both belong on the table.
• Reviewing user accounts — old administrator access for contractors who stopped working for you long ago is an open door.
• Securing the login page — the WordPress login sits at the same address on every site and is probed automatically accordingly.
• Tidying the database — old post revisions and spam comments accumulate for years and slow things down over time.
• PHP version in view — whether the site still runs on a version the vendor supports. A change wants preparing, not surprising you.
• Uptime, certificate, loading time — the site is polled continuously, HTTPS stays valid, noticeable slowdowns are reported.

After every run you receive a short report: what was updated, what was checked, what stood out. Not because it looks good, but because maintenance you never see is indistinguishable from maintenance that never happens.

What WordPress maintenance is not

Not an automatic update click. WordPress has been able to update itself for years, and many maintenance packages consist of exactly that: the box is ticked, the invoice goes out monthly, nobody ever looked. If the form dies in the process, nobody notices — because nothing is being checked. The very part that can be skipped is the part that does the work.

Not a guarantee. Maintenance closes holes before anyone finds them on your site. That is not an assurance that nothing will ever happen — it shrinks the window in which something can happen from months to days. Anyone promising “all-round protection” for a small monthly fee is selling a word that nobody can honour.

Not search engine optimisation and no substitute for new content. A maintained site does not rank higher — it just does not fall over.

Who is it for?

For businesses with a WordPress site and without their own IT department. In other words, for the situation where the site does not really belong to anybody: it was built years ago by somebody who can no longer be reached, nobody looks after it, and the last person to look inside was the one who built it.

Also when the site is not ours — that is more the rule than the exception. And if the inventory shows that the site is old enough that a relaunch would cost less than maintaining the old one, we will tell you. Even when no maintenance contract comes of it.

How it works with us

It starts with taking stock, and with WordPress that is more concrete than elsewhere: which WordPress and which PHP version is running. Which theme, and whether it is still maintained. The complete list of plugins with the date of their last update. Whether backups exist and whether one has ever been restored. Who holds an administrator account.

From that follows what needs doing regularly and at what interval. After that it runs on a fixed schedule, with a report. You have a contact person with a phone number instead of a ticket system. How we work in general is described on the process page.

What it costs: WordPress maintenance starts at €49 per month. The biggest factor in the price is the number of plugins — ten maintained plugins are a different matter from thirty, some of which have had no update in years. That is exactly what the inventory is for: afterwards there is a fixed figure, not a range.