Arclight Media Hosting
WordPress Hosting Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a PC, a Mac, or a smart phone, you’ve likely seen system updates by now. While these are released to sometimes offer new features, a majority of the time, they’re released to shore up security holes that have been discovered. These updates can be released by WordPress or any of the plugins that your WordPress site uses.
That’s hard to say, but when it comes to WordPress sites, issues can range from stolen personal credentials or customer information, destruction of a website, or attacks on the entire server or other servers which affects significantly more people and/or businesses.
Of course, we we do them daily; however, backups do not solve the problem…it just means that things can be restored, it doesn’t mean that the site won’t be attacked again.
Yes. Many hackers or malware developers create automated or semi-automated systems that don’t care how large your website it. It only matters if it is online and if it is vulnerable. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are, you should be taking this seriously.
Simply stated, NO. Cars need regular oil changes and maintenance. We get annual physicals for our health. Websites are really no different. The difference is that our business can not continue to subsidize some or all of the behind the scenes maintenance at the website level. To do it right, it is not just a simple click and be done. Your site is backed up before each update, the update is installed and the site is spot check tested for functionality and rolled back if there is an issue.
Basic hosting covers the cost of the server hardware, server software, anti-virus and anti-malware software and maintenance on the server. Websites “run” or “hosted” on the server. An analogy is that hosting pays for the garage so you have a place to show off your car. You’re still responsible for maintenance on the car itself.
Concierge Hosting Services for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs
As an offshoot of our web design and consulting services, Arclight Media provides concierge hosting services for our clients.
Why Hosting?
We have found that for many small and growing businesses as well as many entrepreneurs, the idea of a web site is great but they can be a little fuzzy on the details of what is required to do it well. This is because there are a lot of low price-driven solutions that put the responsibility of managing things on the business owner. While it sounds like a great way to save money, the amount of time it takes to learn and manage things – or repair things when they go sideways ends up costing more…in some cases, a LOT more.
Maintenance vs. Updates
So we are clear, understand that we define “Maintenance” and “Updates” differently. Maintenance refers to making sure the server – and for those of you that use WordPress – the core system and plugins are up to date with current security patches. Updates refer to new CONTENT you might want on your website. This is an important difference for our hosting services.
Hosting Packages
Our hosting services have two tiers: Basic Hosting and Hosting Plus.
With the Basic Plan, you are responsible for maintenance and updates. And we do mean responsible! If you choose basic hosting with us but simply don’t do your maintenance patches, you not only put your own website at risk, but you potentially affect other websites and site visitors as well. This is why we have a caveat that if you do not keep your site patched*, we will suspend the site until things are patched. Nobody on our services is exempt from this policy as it is a safeguard for all of our customers that use our servers. Typically, sites that do NOT use WordPress (or other Content Management Systems) don’t have to worry about maintenance updates and can just use the Basic Hosting package.
With Hosting Plus, we do the maintenance for you, freeing you up to do the things you NEED to do as the business owner – things like creating new and relevant content for your website. This is the best choice for WordPress users. This cost varies based on the number of plugins that your site uses. We make sure that sites are backed up BEFORE maintenance patches are applied and then the site is tested to make sure that it is all working…less for you to worry about!
*Acceptable time frames are addressed in the Hosting Agreement.
What About Updates?
By the way, we can certainly do updates for you too, but we do not include that as a part of hosting. Please contact us if you would like to explore our content update services.