Web Maintenance Concepts

Why do you need to maintain your website?

Maintaining a website IS NOT a simple task… and some web-owners are reluctant to do it for themselves. If you’re like most folks, after your first frustrating ‘multi-hour attempt… you’ll start looking for the nearest competent web pro. It is a must-do thing. The most important part of a website, and one that draws visitors, is the fresh, updated, relevant contents. It helps in building trust as well. You need to improve / modify your content on a regular basis. Show your visitors fresh and current information. It will lead to a better site after each update. That is the key for getting RETURN visits.

But that is only part of the story. Actual site maintenance should follow a stipulated schedule and involve different actions.

• Check for Broken/Dead links:

Think in terms of your visitors. How frustrated will they be, if they find pages containing broken links? When you are reading an article in a website - and in the references part you find more URLs to explore, deeper into the subject; you click one and get an “HTTP 404″ Error Message. You end up frustrated and may even decide not to return to that site. It may happen to the visitors of your site as well. Whenever they encounter a broken/dead link, it causes irritation.

• When and how frequent?

If your website is small, once a week will do. There are a lot of tools to check for broken / dead links, and we use them all. For large sites, containing thousands of pages, every day is the norm. This can only be accomplished with a sophisticated, programmatic maintenance strategy, which essentially ‘combs’ the site for errors and omissions. We also do routine ‘spot-checks’ in each section / category to verify functionality.

• Update sitemap:

Your website's sitemap should be updated each time you add a new page. It can also be updated once a week, depending upon the importance of the changes. If your site is using ‘Google Sitemap.xml’ or the Yahoo-type: “URL-list.txt”, - it should be updated frequently as well. Most importantly, you don’t know what these terms mean… Then, you need a web-maintenance pro.

• Database maintenance:

Whether you are using a content management system, or you have developed one for your own use, database maintenance is a MUST! -- If your site stores content in a database; you need to optimize your tables for performance enhancement on a regular basis. You should also consider changing queries a small amount to show extra information; perhaps adding a field in an existing table; or even creating a new table altogether to meet your visitors ever changing needs. Database maintenance requires technical knowledge and attempting any change without knowing the effect -- may cause irreversible damage to your site.