How much attention do you pay to preventing hacking, spam, blacklisting and performance issues on your WordPress website? If your site is hosted on a set-it-and-forget-it server, you're probably headed for serious problems that could put your most important online marketing asset at risk. Here's what you need to know:
- The most reliable and popular content management system, WordPress, includes many sophisticated features and plugins. WordPress software must be maintained and protected against malware threats and conflicts that may arise from WordPress, theme and plugin updates.
- Web hosting on all servers, regardless of cost, is designed to offer support for server issues only. They usually include several days worth of backups that can be used to restore a website with problems. Unfortunately, by the time you know you have problems with your website, the backups usually have the same problems.
- Web hosting services will not warn you when your site is at risk of malware, spam, or blacklisting. If your site is hacked, most hosting companies will take your site offline to protect their server. Often you will not be notified of this change.
- Web hosting services will not detect or warn you about code issues that cause site speed issues. You won't know when forms, corporate mail, toggles, and other design elements stop working properly.
- Automatic updates to your WordPress website can provide some security protection, but they come at a price. This can lead to coding conflicts that compromise design, functionality, and performance.
If hacked, Google will blacklist your site. In addition to hiring a developer to clean your site of malicious code, you will need to contact Google to request the removal of the blacklist. This may take several days, and in the meantime, a danger message appears in the search results, warning visitors that the site has been compromised.
In short, hosting your site on a standard server without additional security, alerts, and ongoing maintenance is a lot of trouble. They can be expensive to repair, limit your website's performance, and reduce your profits and leads. Hosting that includes maintenance supported by a qualified developer is the answer to protect your website from all threats, updates, coding issues and ensure maximum performance without stress or additional costs for you.
Support for these services is not included in website hosting:
- Manual website software updates that detect conflicts and other issues missed by automatic updates
- Detect and resolve problems caused by software and coding conflicts
- Additional firewall for website security and speed
- Scan and alert for viruses and malware
- Malware removal, including removal of malicious hacking code
- Addressing vulnerabilities that put a website at risk of hacking, spam, and performance issues
- Installing and configuring software to improve website security and performance
- Removal of blacklist from Google in case of malware
Regarding security and SSL certificates, which are now required by Google to index websites, free SSL may or may not be provided by hosting companies. Free C-panels, which greatly facilitate site management, may also be unavailable.
Most web design and development companies do not provide support for hacker attacks, spam, email and performance issues after the site is launched. They only support coding and design issues for a limited period of time. They do not address any security measures that are part of a managed hosting plan.
Web servers: what they are and why they are needed
The web server supports HTTP/HTTPS requests on the Internet, which allows displaying a variety of content and services to site visitors. Hosting companies rent space in a shared or dedicated server environment where hosting customers can serve their own content using unique URLs, software and web pages. Regardless of where the server is located, the hosted website will be displayed to visitors anywhere in the world that it is viewed.
The most common server type is Apache. This open source software supports almost all operating systems. Some common operating systems include Linux, Unix, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and others. Apache is more stable than any other web server and provides simpler administrative functions. It can also be used to host operating systems that support multiple platforms on the same server, as long as the operating system is consistent. This means that WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Apple and Android applications can all be hosted on the same Linux server.
What you need to know about hosting companies
There are a huge number of hosting companies that provide server services to meet the needs of most customers in a shared environment. This is usually low-cost hosting where many websites belonging to different customers can share the same server, even if their content is unique and separate from the others. Most servers today provide automatic backups, free emails, and tools to scan the site for malware. Some of them provide free website migration services when you migrate your website to their server. However, their support is strictly limited to server operations. Most website problems are related to website software and coding that are not supported by hosting companies.
Virtual hosting provides limited features and capabilities. It often doesn't support more advanced web applications that require tweaks in the server software. In such cases, a dedicated server may be required to overcome limitations in a shared environment.
Basing hosting decisions on cost and assuming that one server is no worse than another is a big mistake that many business owners make. The wrong server without proper server software and configuration can lead to poor site performance and speed. Some features included in the design and development of the site may not be available at all. A good web design and development company will help their clients choose a server that will meet their initial and ongoing needs for optimal performance.
What is managed hosting and why is it needed?
Managed hosting is a service that is generally not provided by most hosting companies or digital marketing companies. Unfortunately, and all too often, websites are poorly maintained, leading to numerous problems ranging from hacking to spam, code conflicts, slow speeds, and features that no longer work at all.
Most business owners realize how important a well-designed and functional website is to the success of their online marketing business. But too often they don't see the point in prevention and don't know about services that can keep their site up to date and working optimally for a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, they may find this out after a major problem that requires expensive developer services to fix. This does not guarantee that the developer has the skills and experience to resolve such issues and that the underlying vulnerabilities will be fixed. Self-resolving an existing problem also does not guarantee that new ones will not appear.
Managed hosting services may include a variety of services. A good managed hosting plan will include:
- A reliable Linux operating system with sufficient data storage and server software that can support advanced theme and platform requirements.
- Free SSL and C-Panel
- Free server-side scanning to detect threats and provide alerts to the managed hosting company when detected.
- Additional firewall for additional security.
- Removing the blacklist if it occurs.
- All the services you need for one low-cost monthly fee. This includes manually updating software, checking for and resolving software conflicts, and performance issues.
- The work is done by skilled developers who know the hosted projects and can make the necessary changes to the software as more security and functionality become available.
- The company has a responsibility to educate customers on safe practices that can prevent computer threats from online and offline sources.
