At ClikIT, we handle over 200 WordPress websites that we maintain & people call on for support. Sometimes it is routine maintenance or new projects, but sometimes we get a frantic email that a site is down or some user functionality isn’t working as expected. Our business is setup efficiently to handle these emergencies, and we’re all trained to passively monitor our support inbox, Slacks & Google Chats for those types of “HELP!” messages from our clients.
When a website emergency comes in, we first triage it and see if it is actually a down site or if there is something else going on. Sometimes, we get messages saying something is urgent when in reality, the site isn’t down & they just need a new feature done ASAP. We filter those out to respect our time & make sure it is fair to all clients and nobody can manipulate our time. Once that is verified, we drop everything we’re doing and help get the site back online.
Once we verify that the site is actually down, we get to work. We collect information, and do basic checks to rule our “easy” fixes such as a DNS issue, SSL certificate, or expired domain name. If it is one of those three issues, then we apply the fix easily.
DNS issues – We make sure that the A record is pointed correctly, and the DNS provider doesn’t have an outage. I’ve seen where Sucuri has gone down and brought down all of their websites with it.
SSL Certificate – We make sure the SSL certificate isn’t expired. If it is, we usually apply Let’s Encrypt certificate. SSL certificates expire every 90 days or once a year, and can renew automatically. If it isn’t set to renew automatically, then we make sure we set it up to where it does so it doesn’t go down again.
Expired Domain name – Domain names also expire every year. If there’s a billing issue, the domain will expire. Additionally, if auto renew is set to off, the domain will not renew & be expired.
If the issue is not one of those, then we dive deeper. We enable the debug log in WordPress by enabling it in , and look at the errors being generated. Once we determine the issue, we apply the fix & let the client know that their issue is resolved. Usually, the client then verifies systems have returned to normal.
We take your site success seriously at ClikIT. That’s why we’re trusted by more than 200 websites to manage & be called on when things go wrong!
