A client had his website domain hacked at the domain registrar last week. Someone maliciously changed the nameservers, hacking both the website and email. The only reason this was discovered was by monitoring his website. Learn more about what unfolded in this article and video, why website monitoring is essential, and best practices.
Why Monitor Your Website Weekly?
Monitoring your website is critical for SEO by any organization that depends on its digital presence for marketing, be it a business or non-profit. Reasons to monitor your website weekly include:
- Uptime and Downtime: Your website can go down for various reasons, from server issues to expired domains or hosting issues. Monitoring ensures you’re the first to know when your site is down so you can take immediate action.
- Performance: Slow website speeds can drive potential customers away. Regular checks can help identify if your website is lagging or if there are any broken links.
- Security: Hacking attempts, vulnerabilities, and malware infections are sadly common. Regular monitoring can alert you to suspicious activities or breaches.
- SEO Ranking: Your website’s visibility on search engines can be affected by several factors, including page speed, mobile compatibility, and broken links. Monitoring can help keep these factors optimized.
- Content Updates and Validity: Ensure the information is up-to-date and relevant, especially if you have dynamic content or regular updates.
A Real-life Scenario: The Weekly Newsletter Nightmare
Let’s dive into a real-life situation that underscores the importance of monitoring your website weekly. A client who runs a successful weekly newsletter has always emphasized the need for punctuality. For him, every newsletter affirmed his brand’s reliability.
Just before sending out his newsletter, he checked his website. He found that the site was down.
He contacted Image Building Media support for assistance. Our team jumped into action, investigating the cause. At first glance, everything seemed fine: the hosting was active, and there were no evident server issues. But as we delved deeper, we discovered that the nameservers for the domain had been changed.
Our only assumption could be that someone had hacked the domain registrar, which is one of the top in the world. The intruders had changed the nameservers, effectively rerouting traffic to a different server. The quick discovery and intervention prevented potential damage to his brand reputation and, more importantly, any potential data breach.
The event was a jarring reminder about the importance of regular website checks. If he hadn’t checked his site that day, his newsletter could have led subscribers to a dead or, worse, malicious site.
Best Practices for Weekly Website Monitoring
- Automated Monitoring Tools: Use Pingdom, Uptime Robot, or Site24x7. They can check your website’s uptime and alert you if it goes down.
- Manual Checks: While automated tools are great, manually visiting your website is always a good idea. Check if the main pages load correctly, the content displays as it should, and all links work.
- Test Contact Forms and CTAs: Test any contact forms, sign-up sheets, or call-to-action buttons to ensure they work and that submissions reach the intended recipients.
- Software Updates: Ensure that all plugins, themes, and core software (e.g., WordPress) are up-to-date. This reduces vulnerabilities from outdated software.
- Backup Regularly: Ensure you have a backup system. This is crucial to restore your website in case of hacks or data loss.
- Change Passwords: Regularly change and strengthen your website and domain registrar passwords.
- Regular Security Scans: Use tools or services that scan your website for malware or suspicious activities.
Conclusion
In our digital era, the health and security of your website are paramount. Regular automated and manual monitoring can help detect potential issues early, saving you time, money, and stress in the long run. Don’t wait for a problem; be proactive and ensure your online presence is always at its best.
Image Building Media
Image Building Media provides fully managed WordPress websites with monthly maintenance and hosting. We manage the server, WordPress updates, and security, including daily double redundant backups.
Although the website issue described above was unrelated to our service, we identified the problem and solution so that the correct settings were restored at the registrar quickly, resulting in the restoration of the website.