This week, we spent some time “un hacking”, patching and hardening someone’s website. We don’t dislike doing it. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s a learning experience every time. Plus, in the service industry, sometimes we have to do dirty jobs that others don’t like or know how to do.
However, time and time again, we are presented with an almost identical set of statements from the site owners; “we bought this website from **** web design, but we can’t get hold of them”, “we pay for hosting, shouldn’t it be secure anyway”, “we’ve only had the website a few months”, “who’s done this to us? Is it x we sacked?” and many many more.
Let’s expand out a couple.
“we bought this website from **** web design”
There’s nothing wrong with whoever you choose to design and build your website. Only where your spec and their delivery ended. You bought a website but, for whatever reason, didn’t plan how you would look after it. Think, buying a new car and not doing any maintenance or servicing, in fact, being completely ignorant of the manufacturer’s safety recalls.
Let’s work together on your next project
We would love to hear from you to discuss how we could help you with your current or next E-Commerce project or Search Marketing plans.“we pay for hosting, shouldn’t it be secure anyway”?
It normally is very. What is less secure is the code you host on it. Unless you’re in serviced office space, you must put the alarm on, lock the doors and windows and pull down the shutter. Even then, hopefully, you rely on an alarm monitoring company to let you know that someone is trying to break in or even, despite your best efforts, has got in.
I think you get the point I’m trying to make. You have a responsibility to yourselves to look after your website investment, maintain it, service it and monitor it. If you don’t have the resources to do this in-house, it’s time to seek help.
A hacked website can affect your business in many ways: damaged reputation, a data breach (and the expense of dealing with that), loss of sales (if someone clicks your link in a search engine but is advised your site isn’t safe), the expense of actually cleaning up after the fact.
Did you say, “I’m alright, Jack”? Then you’re either doing the right thing already, which is great news! or we’ll await your call for help, hopefully proactively, not reactively.
If any of the above makes sense and you want help from some really friendly people who’ve been there and know their stuff, feel free to get in touch. The maintenance cost is far less than repair, and we have packages and plans to suit most budgets.
