# Website maintenance checklist: what to check every week, month and year

> A website maintenance checklist for small businesses: what to check weekly, monthly and yearly, signs your site is outdated, and how to catch up an old one.

Canonical: https://primilink.com/website-maintenance-checklist/
Last updated: 2026-11-06

Website maintenance is the routine that keeps a site safe, working and accurate: software updates, backups, a few quick checks, and keeping your prices, hours and photos current. Once it's set up, it takes a small business about an hour a month. Below is the checklist, the signs a site has been left alone too long, and the safe order for catching one up. To see how common neglect is, we checked 370 Big Island service business websites on November 6, 2026. A third hadn't changed a single page in over a year.

By [Elijah Ching](https://primilink.com/about-me/) · Published Nov 6, 2026 · 12 min read

![A clipboard checklist with green ticks, a browser window showing a slightly worn web page with a cracked corner, and a calendar with circled days beside a refresh arrow and a paintbrush.](https://primilink.com/assets/img/blog/website-maintenance-checklist.webp)

When 262 local business websites last changed a page

Of the 262 websites whose sitemap lists dates, the newest change was within the last three months on 40% (104 sites), 3 to 12 months ago on 26% (69), 1 to 2 years ago on 14% (36), 2 to 3 years ago on 11% (29) and more than 3 years ago on 9% (24). The oldest hadn't changed since 2012. Four sitemaps that stamp every page with the current date were left out.

## How we checked

We used the same list as our [440-site phone test](https://primilink.com/how-to-increase-website-conversion-rate/): every website listed on the Google profiles of 690 service businesses around Hilo and Kona, from roofers and electricians to dentists, law firms and charters. On November 6, 2026, a script opened each homepage in Chrome, then ran the checks a maintenance pro would run: the security certificate, the software versions a page reveals, analytics code, up to 20 links and 10 images on the homepage, and the site's sitemap, the file that tells Google when each page last changed. 370 homepages loaded normally. We don't name any business. The full tool-by-tool results are in [our guide to free website maintenance tools](https://primilink.com/website-maintenance-tools/).

One limit to keep in mind: a sitemap shows when pages changed, not whether the business is doing well. Plenty of busy businesses run on referrals and a website nobody has touched in years. The problem shows up with strangers, who look you up before they call.

## What website maintenance includes

Six jobs, whoever does them:

- **Keep it running.** Hosting, the web address and the security certificate (the padlock) renewed on time, and an alert if the site goes down.
- **Keep it safe.** Software updates, backups stored somewhere other than the website, and logins only for people who still need them.
- **Keep it working.** Forms that actually deliver, phone numbers that dial, links that go somewhere.
- **Keep it findable.** Google Search Console checked for problems, and your Google Business Profile matching the site.
- **Keep it accurate.** Prices, hours, services, staff, service areas and photos.
- **Keep it current.** Recent work and reviews added now and then, and a fresh look every few years, before the site starts to look abandoned.

On WordPress you or someone you pay does all six. On Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy or Duda, the platform handles the software, hosting and security, and the rest is still yours. More on that below.

## The checklist

### Every week: 10 minutes (WordPress only)

- Install updates to WordPress, your theme and every plugin, or confirm the automatic updates ran. Then open the homepage and the contact page to make sure nothing broke.
- Confirm last night's backup ran and is stored off the website, in cloud storage or with your host.

### Every month: 30 to 45 minutes

- Send a test message through every form on the site, and make sure it arrives. A form that quietly stopped sending is the most expensive problem nobody notices.
- Open the site on your phone, on cell data. Tap the phone number. Does it dial?
- Open Google Search Console. Read any emails it sent, and look at the Pages and Security issues reports. If pages are dropping out, [here's how to find out why](https://primilink.com/website-not-showing-up-on-google/).
- Run a broken link check. In our check, 12% of local business homepages had at least one link or image that went nowhere, and on eight sites it was the link to the contact, quote or booking page.
- Run your homepage through [PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) on the mobile tab. If the score drops after a change, find out what changed.
- Look at what the site produced: calls, form messages and texts. Visitors matter less than inquiries.
- Look ahead 60 days for renewals: web address, hosting, paid plugins.

### Every three months: 1 to 2 hours

- Update prices, hours, services, staff and the towns you serve. Wrong prices cost you twice: the customer who expected the old price, and the one who never called.
- Add two or three recent jobs, photos or reviews.
- Check that your Google Business Profile matches the website: phone, hours, address or service area, and the website link itself.
- Remove plugins you no longer use, and logins for former staff and past web designers.
- Test a backup. Download it, or restore it to a test copy of the site. A backup you've never restored is a guess.

### Every year: half a day

- Renew the web address, hosting and plugin licenses, and check each renewal price before it charges. Make sure the web address is registered to you. [What maintenance costs](https://primilink.com/website-maintenance-cost/) lists typical renewal prices.
- Update the copyright year in the footer, or have it update itself. Of the 255 sites in our check that show a year, 28% showed 2024 or earlier. On Wix it was 22 of 30.
- Review the privacy policy and other legal pages, especially if you added a form, chat or tracking.
- Run an accessibility check with the free [WAVE](https://wave.webaim.org/) tool and fix the errors it lists, starting with missing image descriptions and low-contrast text.
- Ask your host which PHP version the site runs (WordPress only). Older versions stop getting security fixes.
- Read every page as a customer would. Is it all still true? Is anything missing that people ask about on the phone?
- Decide whether the design still holds up next to your competitors' sites. If not, see [what a redesign costs](https://primilink.com/website-redesign-cost/).

### After any change

- Check the page you changed on your phone, submit the forms again and tap the phone number.

## What your website builder does for you, and what it doesn't

| Task | WordPress | Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, Duda |
|---|---|---|
| Software and security updates | You, or automatic updates you switch on | The platform |
| Hosting and the padlock | Your host | The platform |
| Backups | You or your host | Varies: Wix keeps restorable versions, Squarespace doesn't offer full-site backups |
| Forms, links and phone numbers | You | You |
| Prices, hours, photos and services | You | You |
| Search Console and Google Business Profile | You | You |
| Web address renewal | You | You, unless it was bought through the platform |

The platform keeps the software current. It doesn't keep the content current. In our check, 10 of 21 Wix sites, 11 of 24 Duda sites and 20 of 52 Squarespace sites hadn't changed a page in over a year, compared with 28 of 112 WordPress sites. Each builder dates its sitemap a little differently, so treat that as a rough comparison. The point stands: a website builder subscription isn't maintenance.

## Signs your website is outdated

Each of these takes a minute to check.

1. **The footer says an old year.** 28% of the sites we checked that show a year showed 2024 or earlier, 11% showed 2020 or earlier, and the oldest said 2007. To someone who doesn't know you, an old year suggests nobody is minding the site.
2. **The information is wrong.** Old prices, hours, staff or a service you stopped offering. Customers notice before you do.
3. **Nothing has changed in over a year.** To see when a site last changed, add /sitemap.xml to the end of the web address and look for the dates, or look the site up on the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/). A third of the sites we checked hadn't changed a page in over a year.
4. **It's hard to use on a phone.** Text you have to pinch to read, buttons too small to tap, or no phone number on the first screen.
5. **The browser warns people.** "Not secure" in the address bar, or a full-page warning. 9% of the sites we checked either had no padlock at all or let the plain http:// address load without one.
6. **Links or images are broken.** 12% of the homepages we checked had a link or image that went nowhere. Links to dead services count too: five sites still link to Google+, which Google shut down in 2019.
7. **The software is years behind.** On WordPress, Tools > Site Health tells you. 27% of the WordPress sites we checked that show their version weren't on the current release, and 15% were still on version 6 or older.
8. **The analytics stopped counting.** If your Google Analytics account only has an ID starting with "UA-", it stopped recording in July 2023. On seven sites in our check, that old code was the only Google Analytics.
9. **It's slow.** If the first screen takes more than a few seconds on cell data, people are looking at a blank screen instead of your work. In our November 1 test, 17% of local business homepages took over 5 seconds to load, even on a fast connection.

One sign alone is usually a quick fix. Several together usually mean nobody is looking after the site. In our check, half the sites had at least one problem we could spot from the outside, and 16 had three or more.

## How to catch up a website nobody has touched in years

If you've inherited a neglected site, or you're about to hand yours to someone, do it in this order. It's the order experienced developers keep recommending on Reddit's WordPress forum to people asking where to start with a site that hasn't been updated in years.

1. **Get the keys.** Logins for the web address (the registrar), the hosting, the website itself and your Google accounts, in your name. If a past designer holds them and won't answer, contact the registrar's support. If the web address is registered to your business, they can usually get you back in. [How to hire a web designer](https://primilink.com/how-to-hire-a-web-designer/) covers what to do if a designer disappears.
2. **Back up everything, and prove the backup works.** Restore it to a test copy of the site on a separate address. Don't change anything until you have a copy you know you can go back to.
3. **Update the test copy first.** Plugins and the theme first, then WordPress itself. If the site is several major versions behind, go a version or two at a time and check the pages between steps.
4. **Leave PHP for last.** Once everything else is current, ask your host to move to a newer PHP version, one step at a time. Old plugins are the usual reason a PHP upgrade breaks a site.
5. **Replace abandoned plugins.** On WordPress.org, a plugin that hasn't been tested with the last three major WordPress releases shows a warning on its page. Look for a maintained replacement.
6. **Fix the words and photos.** Prices, hours, services, staff, service areas, the copyright year.
7. **Set up the alarms.** Uptime monitoring, Google Search Console, and backups on a schedule, so the next problem tells you about itself.

**When to rebuild instead:** if the theme is no longer supported, the site is eight to ten years old, or the words need rewriting anyway, fixing it can cost more than starting fresh. Developers in the same threads say the same thing about decade-old sites: recreate it on a current setup rather than patch it. [Website redesign cost](https://primilink.com/website-redesign-cost/) has real price ranges for both paths.

## How long website maintenance takes

| Situation | Your time |
|---|---|
| Squarespace or Wix site, kept current | About 30 minutes a month, plus the quarterly content update |
| WordPress site with automatic updates on | About an hour a month |
| WordPress site two years behind | A few hours to a day, on a test copy first |
| A site eight to ten years old | Often more than a rebuild. Get a quote for both. |

Most updates finish in seconds. The time goes into checking that nothing broke, and into the content: deciding what's out of date and writing the new version.

## Where Primilink fits

Every site we build launches with backups switched on, and when a price, a photo or your hours change, you send a quick request and we take care of it. You own the site, the words, the photos and the logins, and your web address is registered in your name, so if you ever leave, everything goes with you. If your current site is showing several of the signs above, our [free website score](https://primilink.com/free-website-score/) is a quick first look, and plans for a new site start at $249 a month.

## Where this comes from

Checked November 6, 2026.

- **The website check:** Primilink's own check of the 440 homepages listed on 690 Google Maps profiles of service businesses around Hilo and Kona, Hawaii (the list from our [November 1 phone test](https://primilink.com/how-to-increase-website-conversion-rate/)). 370 loaded normally. The script read each homepage in Chrome, checked up to 20 links and 10 images per homepage, read each site's sitemap and security certificate, and compared WordPress versions against WordPress.org's own list of current and insecure versions. Copyright years are from the same homepages.
- **WordPress:** WordPress.org's [release archive](https://wordpress.org/download/releases/) and [updating WordPress](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/updating-wordpress/).
- **Accessibility:** WebAIM's [WAVE](https://wave.webaim.org/) evaluation tool.
- **Owners' and developers' experiences:** r/Wordpress on [a site unmaintained for two years](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1dw53ir/) and [a decade-old site](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1noevfp/), and r/smallbusiness on [how long a local business can go without updating its website](https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1x64bcj/).

## Frequently asked questions

### What does website maintenance include?

Software updates, backups, security and uptime checks, testing forms and links, renewing the web address and hosting, checking Google Search Console, and keeping prices, hours, services and photos current. On Squarespace or Wix the platform handles the software and hosting; the rest is still yours.

### How often should a website be updated?

Software: weekly on WordPress, or automatically. Content: whenever prices, hours or services change, and at least every three months for recent work and reviews. In our check of 370 local business websites, a third hadn't changed a page in over a year.

### How long does website maintenance take?

About an hour a month for a small WordPress site with automatic updates on, and less on Squarespace or Wix. Catching up a site that's two years behind takes a few hours to a day, done on a test copy first.

### Can I do website maintenance myself?

Yes, if you'll actually do it on a schedule. The checklist above needs no coding. Pay someone if your site brings in real work and you know you won't get to it, and ask for a monthly record of what they did.

### Do Squarespace and Wix websites need maintenance?

Less, but yes. The platform updates the software and keeps the site secure. You still need to test forms, fix broken links, keep your information current, check Google Search Console and renew your web address. In our check, Wix and Squarespace sites were more likely than WordPress sites to have gone over a year without a change.

### How can I tell when a website was last updated?

Add /sitemap.xml to the end of the web address and look at the dates listed for each page, or look the site up on the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) to see saved copies over time. The copyright year in the footer is a hint, but some sites never change it.

### What should a website maintenance message say?

Keep it short and give people another way to reach you, for example: "We're updating our website and will be back by 3 pm. Need us now? Call (808) 555-0123 or email hello@example.com." On WordPress, a maintenance mode plugin shows the message while you work.

## Related
- [Home](https://primilink.com/)
- [Blog](https://primilink.com/articles-and-resources/)
- [Elijah Ching](https://primilink.com/about-me/)
- [440-site phone test](https://primilink.com/how-to-increase-website-conversion-rate/)
- [our guide to free website maintenance tools](https://primilink.com/website-maintenance-tools/)
- [here's how to find out why](https://primilink.com/website-not-showing-up-on-google/)
- [What maintenance costs](https://primilink.com/website-maintenance-cost/)
- [what a redesign costs](https://primilink.com/website-redesign-cost/)
- [Request a proposal](https://primilink.com/request-your-proposal/)
- [Contact](https://primilink.com/contact/)

Primilink · Kailua-Kona, Hawaii · (213) 776-3217 · elijah@primilink.com