Over the last couple of blogs I’ve talked about bugs and broken websites. After I wrote them I had a few people request a blog on how I fix broken websites. So giving the people what they want, here is Alex’s complete guide to fixing broken websites. Here are the five steps I take when a client comes to me with a website that doesn’t work.
The first step seems the most simple but is the most important – identify the problem. Pinpointing exactly how and where a website is going wrong is vital to being able to fix it. I will discuss with my clients what the problems are and start building a picture of what needs to be done. Remember how we discussed giving details in last month’s blog, this is where you put those steps into action. I will work with you to outline:
This is where error messages become incredibly useful, for example the well known “404 not found” becomes a starting point to fixing missing pages. From this I can prepare a bug report, which explains what and where the problems are within the system.
The next step is to make sure the system is working properly.
There are a range of possible issues that can affect a website and this blog would become a multivolume book if I tried to discuss them all, but here is an example to give you an idea of the sort of problems we’re looking for here:
Over the last few years we’ve seen what happens when third party applications used by vast swathes of the internet go wrong – remember when card payments stopped working a couple of years back? Making sure remotely hosted Application Programming Interfaces (Google suite and similar) are up and running properly. There are a number of ways to check this including proxy-servers to test if it is a local or global problem.
Step three – figure out where the issues are coming from. So we have ruled out the servers, domain issues and third party applications. Next is looking closer to home two core questions I ask are:
If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you know I am very keen to make sure websites are up-to-date, particularly security patches to protect your website from bad actors. Making sure all up-dates are, well, up-to-date is a key part of ensuring your website runs smoothly.
The flip side of this is checking for changes, has someone been working on the website and accidentally added or deleted something important. Changes to the website can cause it to misbehave, thankfully once a problem like this is found repairs are usually easy to fix. This means your website is back up and running quickly, meaning you don’t lose valuable customers or revenue.
I’ve already talked briefly about security but step four is where I rule out bad actors. This is where I check to make sure nothing malicious is going on. I work to make sure that there are no hidden file explorer add-ons or other potentially harmful parts of the website. Has anyone been able to access the backend of the website or do any possible damage?
Once each of these steps has been completed and I have a fully fleshed out bug report I can start my repairs. This is the stage where I bring your website back to full working order. This isn’t the longest step I’ve written about today but with the help of the four previous steps this stage should be quick, efficient and cost effective for your business. I work swiftly and diligently to make sure you don’t lose out on time or potential sales from a broken website.
So there you have it, my guide to repairing a broken website. If your website is not working quite like it should then get in touch at my contact page and we’ll work it out together step by step!