A site going live is not the end of the work — a small, recurring set of maintenance tasks keeps it that way. This lesson lists what they are and what actually happens when each one is skipped.
A backup is a separate, restorable copy of a site's files and database, taken on a schedule. Without one, a hacked site, a bad update, or a mistaken deletion has no way back — the site is simply gone or broken until it is rebuilt from scratch, which is often far more expensive in time than the backup ever would have cost.
| Source | What it typically covers |
|---|---|
| Hosting-provider backups | Often included automatically on managed platforms, sometimes as a paid add-on on shared or VPS hosting — worth confirming rather than assuming |
| Application-level backups | A WordPress backup plugin or similar, exporting the database and files on its own schedule, independent of what the host does |
| This site's own approach | Per this project's own CLAUDE.md practice, a daily automated job that exports content as versioned files — the same idea applied at the content layer rather than the whole server |
| What expires | What happens if it lapses |
|---|---|
| Domain registration | The domain becomes available for anyone else to register, after a grace period — the single most severe expiry on this list, since it can mean losing the domain entirely |
| SSL certificate | Covered in the HTTPS lesson — visitors see a security warning; modern free certificates renew automatically, but older manual setups do not |
| Hosting plan | The site typically goes offline once a paid plan lapses, though most providers give some warning first |
The security-basics lesson in this site's design category covers this from the security side; the point here is purely operational — CMS platforms (WordPress especially), plugins, and server software all receive security patches over time, and an unpatched, out-of-date installation is a genuinely common way real sites get compromised. This is ongoing maintenance, not a one-time setup task.
None of this is difficult individually — it is easy to overlook precisely because nothing goes wrong for a long stretch, until the one time a backup would have mattered and none exists. Setting a calendar reminder for domain renewal is a genuinely sufficient defense against the most severe item on this list.