And with a great website, you need great hosting for a suitable environment that will safely guard your hard-made site, backup of your work, and offer enough bandwidth to accommodate a wide range of visitor traffic. But if you can’t access your site through its domain or the SERPs it means you have a few issues with your WordPress settings. Additionally, it might mean you might be under a malware attack or have other issues causing downtime A few tweaks will get it back online and running as usual. But first, here’s a few questions we need to answer to help you out.
Prevention is Key
In many cases, you can prevent most issues in the first place. For this, you should consider a few measures. First, take on a reliable WordPress hosting provider. Additionally, make sure to integrate an SSL certificate with sufficient encryption levels. You can get one free from providers like Cloudflare.
Prevention is KeyWhy is my Website Not Secure?Why Is My Site Not Visible in Search Engines?Do I Need Internal Links to Other Webpages?How Can I Fix my WordPress After Updating PHP?Do I Need to Scan My Website for Malware?Is My Site Hosting Secure?Should I Backup My Website?Why am I Getting Mixed Content Warning?Is My Site Using Outdated Plugins/Themes?Do I Need a WordPress Update?Conclusion
Lastly, be extremely careful when making changes to your website. Consider every plugin you install, if you truly need it, and what risks it poses.
Why is my Website Not Secure?
Your website is not secure until you install WordPress security plugins. WordPress is one of the most commonly hacked Content Management System (CMS), and without security plugins, your site is toast. But security is not something that you do once. In a world where online vulnerability is always evolving, you will need to keep updating your security plugins with the latest updates. One must-have thing is to install an SSL certificate so that your site visitors can enjoy an encrypted connection.
Why Is My Site Not Visible in Search Engines?
No matter how empty your site is, search engines like Google should be able to find and index it. And if you can’t seem to find it, then you need to check your WordPress settings. Under the privacy settings, ensure you set it to public view so that your clients can access your site. Additionally, make sure to check the contents of your robots.txt file. It is responsible for permitting search engine crawlers to crawl your page. To further improve indexing speed, use a plugin to create an XML sitemap. A plugin like Yoast will automatically do it for you.
Do I Need Internal Links to Other Webpages?
Backlinks help site visitors access other pages, from the homepage, blog, or contacts page. As they browse through the home pages, they can easily click on an image or a hyperlinked keyword to open another page and learn more about you. If you have various online pages that you have created but can’t access them, check these hyperlinks. Since a long-running site might acquire quite a large number, you’re better off using a plugin like Broken Link Checker to do it for you.
How Can I Fix my WordPress After Updating PHP?
PHP is a scripting language meant for general purposes. Updates work great on your site functions until it doesn’t, which is not uncommon, but you can fix them in a few steps. First, you have to deactivate all plugins, then change the theme to the default version. Once you do this, then update your WordPress, plugin, and theme then activate all plugins and themes. You also have the option to downgrade to a previous PHP version, update WordPress, and finally update PHP again. That should restore your site to normal. After a WordPress core update is rolled out be sure to check if your plugins and themes have been updated to be compatible, as well.
Do I Need to Scan My Website for Malware?
If your site is not functioning well and you’re the only one who has access to it, there are chances that malware is causing it. WordPress has built-in security plugins that easily detect malware and security issues and fix them promptly. But you can never be too careful with your site security. It always helps if you can put an extra security layer by installing an online antivirus on your PC. If you’re experiencing strange activity on your website, be sure to check if there are any new users created, strange actions taken, and if your own workstation has been compromised.
Is My Site Hosting Secure?
Your site may look great with immersive graphics and captivating content, but none of that matters if the hosting environment is not secure. It’s probably a good idea to also check out other companies that offer dedicated WordPress hosting packages. This type aims to improve both the performance and security fo your WordPress website.
Should I Backup My Website?
Absolutely. One attack from a malicious virus and your entire website can get wiped out in minutes. Even worse, malware can copy, delete, or create multiple copies of your web content. You want to avoid this by backing up all your data, just in case. Ideally, you should automate the backup process through both your hosting control panel and with a plugin like Jetpack.
Why am I Getting Mixed Content Warning?
When your site has mixed content, it means hackers can easily see your site content, as it’s not well encrypted. If your browser warns you of an insecure connection, don’t panic. It could be because you migrated your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS. Assuming you have already installed the latest SSL certificate and redirected HTTP to HTTPS site-wide, check the browser’s Developer tools or security tabs. Look out for “insecure connections” to see the non-secure origins. After you’ve fixed all errors refresh your page to see if it loads as it should.
Is My Site Using Outdated Plugins/Themes?
WordPress offers different themes to choose from, and you can easily change them as often as you wish. But once you upgrade to WordPress 5.5, all outdated plugins or themes will start to malfunction. Outdated plugins or themes can easily break your site, as WordPress core no longer supports them. Check to see all plugins are up to date and update the obsolete ones.
Do I Need a WordPress Update?
Every so often, WordPress releases updates to tackle various attacks online. By updating your WordPress, you secure your site with the latest security threat definitions to help block any malicious attacks.
Conclusion
When it comes to building a site, whether for business or your blog, you will need to use a robust and efficient hosting platform. These easy and useful tips will help you repair and build your site.
