Hosting By Lui Nobrega · Mar 18, 2026 · Updated Oct 26, 2026 · 5 min read

Why Websites Need Regular Check-Ups

A website is not a sign you hang up once. It is more like a work truck. It runs fine until the day it does not, and there were usually warnings first. Here is a monthly and a quarterly check-up, with the tool for each step.

Things break quietly

Contact forms stop sending and nobody finds out for months. Security certificates expire and visitors get a warning instead of your home page. Links point to pages that moved. None of this announces itself. You just notice that the phone rings less than it used to.

Set up three things once

These make every check-up faster. Most of the work after this is reading a report.

  1. Add your website to Google Search Console. Google uses it to email you about problems it finds on your site. See: Add a website property to Search Console (opens in a new tab)
  2. Sign up for an uptime monitor. It checks your site every few minutes and alerts you when it goes down. UptimeRobot is one example. Its free plan checks every 5 minutes. Certificate monitoring needs a paid plan. Check its current plans before you choose. See: Plans & Pricing (UptimeRobot) (opens in a new tab)
  3. Ask your host where your backups are kept, how often they run and how to restore one. Write the answers down.

The monthly check-up

Pick a day, like the first Monday, and put it on your calendar. On a small site it usually takes under an hour.

  1. Send a test message through every form on your site. Make sure it arrives, and check the spam folder if it does not.
  2. Open your site on your own phone. Tap the phone number, the map and the main buttons.
  3. In Search Console, open the Security issues report. You want a green check mark. If Google finds your site was hacked, it is listed here. See: Security issues report (opens in a new tab)
  4. Open the Manual actions report. A manual action means a Google reviewer found a spam policy problem, and some or all of your site may not show in search. See: Manual actions report (opens in a new tab)
  5. Open the Page indexing report. Your important pages should be indexed. A few pages that are not indexed is normal. See: Page indexing report (opens in a new tab)
  6. Look at your uptime monitor. Note any outage and ask your host about anything longer than a few minutes.
  7. Confirm that the latest backup actually ran. Look at its date, not just the setting.
  8. Install updates. On WordPress, back up first, then update WordPress, your theme and your plugins. Delete plugins you no longer use. See: Updating WordPress (opens in a new tab)
  9. Look at the symbol to the left of your web address in Chrome. If Chrome says Not secure, or shows a "Your connection is not private" page, check from another device or network. If it still shows, call your host the same day. See: Check if a site's connection is secure (opens in a new tab)
  10. Run a broken link check on your site. The W3C Link Checker can follow links through your site if you turn on its recursive option. The online version checks only a limited number of pages this way. See: W3C Link Checker (opens in a new tab)
  11. Test your home page in PageSpeed Insights and compare it with last month. See: PageSpeed Insights (opens in a new tab)
  12. Read your hours, prices and phone number on the site and on your Google Business Profile. Fix anything that changed.

The quarterly check-up

Every three months, add a few deeper checks.

  1. Do a test restore. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan. Ask your host to restore a recent backup to a staging copy, or do it yourself, and make sure the site works. WordPress recommends keeping several recent backups in different places. See: Backups (WordPress Advanced Administration Handbook) (opens in a new tab)
  2. Run your domain through SSL Labs for a deeper look at your security certificate setup. Tick "Do not show the results on the boards" if you prefer to keep it private. See: SSL Server Test (opens in a new tab)
  3. Check that your certificate renews on its own. If your site uses a free Let's Encrypt certificate, it lasts 90 days today, and Let's Encrypt is shortening that in steps to 45 days by 2028. It advises against renewing by hand and recommends monitoring that alerts you if a renewal fails. See: Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days (opens in a new tab)
  4. Open the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console. Look for pages marked Poor or Need improvement. See: Core Web Vitals report (opens in a new tab)
  5. Check when your domain name renews and that the card on file is still valid.
  6. Read every page as if you were a new customer. Remove services you no longer offer and update old photos.
  7. Review who has a login to your site and your hosting. Remove anyone who no longer needs it.

Do it yourself, or hand it off

You do not need to do this every day. A monthly routine catches most problems before a customer runs into them. If you would rather not do it yourself, have your web person do it and send you a short note each month with what they checked and what they fixed.

Helpful links

Common questions

Does my host not do all of this already?

It depends on your host and your plan. Ask them, in writing, exactly what they check and how often. Testing your own forms and reading your own Search Console reports are usually left to you.

How will I know if Google finds a problem with my site?

Add your site to Google Search Console. Google sends email alerts when it finds issues on your site, and manual actions and security issues show up in their own reports.

Sources and further reading

The takeaway

Once a month, test your forms, read your Search Console reports, confirm your backups and updates, and check your links and speed. Once a quarter, restore a backup for real. Small problems stay small that way.

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