# Quarterly website check

A published website does not stand still. The files are the same, but everything
around them keeps moving. Almost nothing that breaks announces itself, so you
have to go and look.

This check takes about half an hour and covers what actually fails. Note the
date each time: comparing one quarter with the next is half the value.

Date of this check: ______________

## Certificate and domain

- [ ] The padlock appears next to the address
- [ ] The certificate expires more than 30 days from now
- [ ] The domain expires more than 60 days from now
- [ ] Auto-renewal is still on and the card has not expired

Certificates do not expire on a Tuesday morning. The usual way to find out is a
client ringing on Monday to ask whether the business has closed down.

## The contact form

This is the most expensive failure and the quietest.

- [ ] Sent a test message through the form
- [ ] **Received** it in the right mailbox, and not in the spam folder
- [ ] Confirmed the notification still reaches whoever it should

Meanwhile the form keeps saying "thank you, we have received your message".
Whoever wrote believes they wrote; whoever should have received believes nobody
wrote that month.

Do this every quarter even if it worked last month: an expiring key or a free
plan hitting its limit breaks it without anyone touching a thing.

## Updates and backups

- [ ] System and components updated
- [ ] Backup taken **before** updating
- [ ] Backups stored **off** the same server
- [ ] **A backup actually restored** as a test this year

A backup that has never been tested is a backup you know nothing about.

## What browsers break

They update every few weeks and none of this generates a warning: the site keeps
opening as normal.

- [ ] The map loads
- [ ] Embedded videos play
- [ ] Fonts are applying
- [ ] Every image loads
- [ ] Checked on a phone, not only on a computer

## Links and content

- [ ] No link leads to a 404
- [ ] Phone numbers and opening hours are current
- [ ] Published prices are the ones in force
- [ ] Legal pages still match what the business actually does

## Speed

- [ ] The home page opens in under 3 seconds on mobile data
- [ ] No image weighs more than 300 KB

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## What a maintenance contract should cover

If you pay a monthly fee, this is the minimum it should include. It is what
separates maintenance from a charge that only shows up on the bank statement.

- Updates with a backup first and a check afterwards
- Automatic backups kept off the server and restored from time to time
- Monitoring of downtime, the certificate and the contact form
- Domain and certificate renewals **before** the date, not after the warning
- A response time in writing. "Support" means nothing; "answered within 24
  working hours" does.

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*Díaz Oliva · diazoliva.com*