800website maintains client sites from AED 299 a month. This is the short version of what that covers and why it exists.
What happens if I do not update WordPress?
You get hacked, eventually. The most common route into a WordPress site is a known vulnerability in an outdated plugin — one that was patched months earlier and never applied. Attacks are automated: bots scan for known-vulnerable versions at scale, and nobody targeted you specifically.
The consequences run further than a defaced page. Sites get used to send spam, which blacklists your domain for email. They get injected with links to other sites, which Google penalises. They get flagged as unsafe in Chrome, which stops visitors before they arrive. Recovery costs multiples of the maintenance that would have prevented it.
Apply core, theme and plugin updates within days of release. Keep the plugin count low — every plugin is another surface — and remove anything you are not using rather than leaving it deactivated.
How do I back up my website?
Properly means three things: automated, off-site, and tested.
- Automated daily, covering both files and database. A backup you have to remember is one you will forget.
- Off-site. A backup on the same server as the site is not a backup — if the server is compromised or fails, both are gone.
- Tested. Restore one to a staging site once. Untested backups fail at exactly the moment you need them.
- Keep 30 days. Some problems are not noticed for weeks, and yesterday’s backup may already contain them.
Good managed hosting includes daily automated backups with self-service restore. That is one of the things you are paying for at AED 2,400 a year rather than AED 300.
What is SSL and does my site need it?
SSL encrypts traffic between the visitor’s browser and your server — it is what turns http:// into https:// and shows the padlock. Yes, every site needs it, including sites that take no payments.
Without it, browsers display a “Not secure” warning that stops visitors, and Google treats HTTPS as a ranking signal. Certificates are free through Let’s Encrypt and included with any decent hosting, renewing automatically.
Two things to check beyond installation: that http:// redirects to https:// automatically, and that you have no mixed content — images or scripts still loading over http, which breaks the padlock even though the certificate is valid.
My website was hacked — what do I do?
In this order:
- Take it offline or into maintenance mode to stop harm to visitors.
- Change every password — hosting, CMS admin, database, FTP — and revoke unknown admin users.
- Restore from a clean backup predating the compromise. This is why you keep 30 days.
- Update everything before putting it back, or you will be reinfected through the same hole.
- Scan properly to confirm nothing remains — backdoors are commonly left behind.
- Request a review in Google Search Console if you were flagged, or the warning persists after the fix.
Then work out how it happened. Cleaning without closing the entry point means doing it again in a fortnight.
See our WordPress development and maintenance, published pricing, or get in touch.
Talk to us
800website is a Dubai web design and development agency with published fixed prices. Send the details and you get a fixed scope and a fixed price back — no hourly billing. Contact us, message us on WhatsApp, or call +971 58 578 5380.
