Website maintenance: who stands behind your site when something breaks?

The common case: I get FTP or admin access to a site someone else built. I usually find my way around quickly, most often in under half an hour, and my first answer is never "rebuild it all from scratch". I find out what the site has, what it lacks and where the risks are. Small tasks get done quickly even on sites I have never seen before. I have also taken over whole Laravel applications and kept developing them when the original developers ran out of time. With an inherited WordPress site I remove unnecessary plugins and tidy up the code. If you are not sure I can handle your site, write anyway; a short description is enough.

• Up to speed usually within half an hour
• Small tasks without a long ramp-up
• Whole applications taken over from the original team

The foundation is a regular cycle: checking and applying WordPress, plugin and theme updates after prior testing, maintaining backups with a verified restore path, and monitoring availability and key functions such as forms or the checkout process. It also includes an agreed block of hours for the small adjustments each month brings, for example copy changes, a new page or a minor functional tweak. Monthly care starts from €99 a month including VAT, depending on the site's size and complexity.

• Updates applied after testing
• Backups with verified restore
• An agreed block of hours for changes

A site nobody watches can stay broken for days before anyone notices. Availability and content monitoring reports a problem before a customer calls. When an alert arrives I follow agreed rules: restore service first, find the cause second. I hold the access details, backups and a record of past changes, so a fix does not wait on discovering who last touched what. For critical projects I also recommend a testing environment where changes are verified before release.

• Availability monitoring
• Restore first, root cause second
• Changes verified before release

I take a new site into care with an audit, which starts from €69. I review PHP and WordPress versions, the theme, plugins, backups, security, performance and error logs. The output is a written list of found risks with a recommended order of fixes. This includes verifying that backups actually work, because a backup nobody has tried to restore is only a hope. The audit also gives both sides a clear picture of the site's state before something goes wrong.

• An audit from €69
• Written risks and priorities
• Verified backups and restore

The most common causes of a hacked website are unpatched plugins and weak passwords. Care covers current versions, file permission checks, two-factor login to the admin and cleaning suspicious accounts. If an incident still happens, the procedure is proven: isolate, restore from backup, analyse the entry path and take measures against repetition. I also deal with credentials that remained distributed after a previous administrator left. The keys to the website belong to its owner.

• Prevention through updates and 2FA
• A proven incident procedure
• Access controlled by the owner

We first clarify the site's condition and your expectations. After the audit I propose the monthly care scope and reporting format: a short monthly summary of completed work and recommendations for the next period. I never push a retainer that does not match reality. A small uncomplicated site needs the minimum, an e-shop in season needs more. If you only need a one-off intervention, such as a form fix or a plugin conflict from €25, I can respond without a permanent contract.

• Scope matched to the site's reality
• A monthly summary of work
• One-off fixes without commitment