WEBSITE REPAIR & TROUBLESHOOTING
Something Broke. Let's Figure Out What.
Websites break. Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes something just isn't working the way it used to and nobody knows why.
We troubleshoot and repair existing websites for Tucson businesses, including WordPress problems, ecommerce issues, broken layouts, hosting and domain problems, failed updates, performance problems, and websites that have simply accumulated years of things that need attention.
You don't need to know what's wrong before you call us. Figuring that out is part of the job.
Tell Us What's BrokenWEBSITE TROUBLESHOOTING
Website Problems We Can Help With
A website has a lot of moving parts. What looks like a simple problem from the outside isn't always caused by the obvious thing.
We can help troubleshoot problems including:
- Broken pages and layouts
- WordPress errors
- Plugin and theme conflicts
- Problems after WordPress, theme, plugin, or PHP updates
- Contact forms that stopped working
- Ecommerce and checkout problems
- SSL and HTTPS errors
- Redirect problems
- DNS and domain configuration
- Broken navigation and links
- Mobile display problems
- Slow websites and performance issues
- Analytics and tracking problems
- Website email and delivery issues
- Hosting and migration problems
- Websites that haven't been maintained in years
Sometimes the fix takes ten minutes. Sometimes pulling on one loose thread reveals something much bigger.
We'll figure out which one you're dealing with.
WORDPRESS REPAIR
A Broken WordPress Site Doesn't Automatically Need a New Website
We've worked with WordPress long enough to remember when seemingly everyone's introduction to building websites involved buying a ThemeForest theme, importing the demo, installing a pile of plugins, and hoping for the best.
A surprising number of those websites are still out there. And they aren't necessarily lost.
Even when an old WordPress site looks completely broken, much of the important material may still be intact. Pages, posts, images, menus, and other content are generally stored separately from the theme and plugins responsible for displaying them.
If the theme still exists, there may be a newer version that works with current versions of WordPress and PHP. An abandoned plugin may have a modern replacement. Some plugins may no longer be necessary at all.
Sometimes we can update what's there and get the original site working again. Other times the presentation is beyond saving, but the content can still be recovered and used to reconstruct the site.
The first step is finding out what survived.
REPAIR OR REBUILD?
Sometimes Fixing a Website Means Knowing When Not to Fix It
Not every website is worth preserving exactly as it was.
If the site depends on a theme that disappeared years ago, plugins that haven't been supported in just as long, and software that can't safely run on a modern server, continuing to patch everything together may cost more than rebuilding it properly.
At some point, repair becomes reconstruction.
We'll look at what's still working, what's recoverable, what can be replaced, and what it would take to make the existing website reliable again.
If repairing it makes sense, we'll repair it. If the underlying website has reached the point where a rebuild makes more sense, we'll tell you that too.
When starting over really is the better option, we also provide web design and development.
HACKED WEBSITES
What If My Website Has Been Hacked?
If your website has been hacked and is actively serving malware, spam pages, strange redirects, or someone else's online casino, your hosting company should be your first call.
An active compromise isn't just a broken webpage. The infection may involve the hosting account or potentially affect other websites and resources on the same server. Your host needs to know what's happening and should be involved in containing and securing the hosting environment.
Once the immediate security problem has been addressed, we can help figure out what can be recovered.
That may mean removing compromised or abandoned plugins, updating WordPress and the theme, replacing outdated components, restoring usable portions of the site, repairing damaged pages, or recovering the content and rebuilding what can no longer be safely maintained.
A badly compromised website may have lost its appearance or functionality without losing all of its content. Before declaring the whole thing dead, we'll see what's actually left.
OLDER WEBSITES
Old Websites Aren't Necessarily Bad Websites
Age by itself isn't a reason to replace a website.
If an older website still works, is secure, performs well, and does what the business needs it to do, we're not going to recommend replacing it simply because it wasn't built last year.
The problems usually come from everything around it changing.
Hosting companies update PHP. Browsers change. WordPress changes. APIs disappear. Plugins are abandoned. Theme developers go out of business. Third-party services change how they work.
Eventually a website that ran happily for years can start developing problems even though nobody intentionally changed anything.
Sometimes it needs a few updates and repairs. Sometimes one obsolete component needs to be replaced. Sometimes years of technical debt have finally come due.
We'll help determine which it is.
MORE THAN WORDPRESS
We Work With More Than WordPress
WordPress is responsible for plenty of repair calls, but it certainly doesn't have a monopoly on broken websites.
We work with existing WordPress, Elementor, Divi, Webflow, WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and custom-built websites, along with plenty of other platforms and systems.
What we can change depends on the platform and the access it gives us. Some systems provide considerably more control than others.
The problem may not even be in the website itself. It could be the hosting account, DNS, SSL certificate, email configuration, a third-party integration, analytics setup, payment processor, or another service the website depends on.
Troubleshooting means finding the actual source of the problem before we start changing things.
If you're dealing with domain, DNS, registrar, or website-access problems, it's also worth checking who actually controls your domain name.Losing access to the domain can cause problems far beyond the website itself.
WHERE DO WE START?
Not Sure What Broke? That's Fine.
You don't need to diagnose the problem before contacting us.
In fact, that's usually the reason you're contacting us.
Tell us what the website is doing, what it should be doing, and anything you know about what happened before the problem started.
If somebody updated a plugin yesterday, that's useful. If your hosting company sent you an incomprehensible warning about PHP, that's useful. If all you know is that everything worked Tuesday and now it doesn't, we can start there too.
Sometimes there's a straightforward fix. Sometimes we're recovering a website that hasn't been touched since 2015. Sometimes the best solution is replacing the thing causing the problem instead of continuing to patch it.
The goal is the same: figure out what's wrong and find the most sensible way to get your website working again.
Need Help With a Broken Website?
If your website stopped working, started behaving strangely, or has accumulated years of problems nobody has wanted to deal with, tell us what's going wrong.
We'll figure out where to start.
Call Tucson SEO Pros