Top Reasons You Should Update Your Old Website
When you made the decision to spend your money on a brand new website, you likely figured that you were making a big investment in the future of your business. However, once you begin to hear that your website isn’t being supported any longer, you will likely jump to the conclusion that someone is looking to take advantage of you.
The fact is, technology is moving at a much faster pace than ever before. If your website is even a couple of years old, it may be in dire need of an update already. No matter how much money you spent on the original design or how reputable the website designer was, that’s the harsh reality of today’s dynamic marketplace.
After all, just think about how we used to listen to music in our vehicles or in our daily life. You will be hard-pressed to find a car that even has a built-in CD player at this point. Any car that has one is likely deemed ancient in today’s current marketplace.
So, what does it actually mean that your website isn’t being supported any longer? And what should you be doing about it?
What This Means For Your Website:
1. Hackers Are Going To Love Targeting Your Site
One of the most significant reasons its so important to keep your website fully updated and to be constantly improving it has to do with Cybersecurity. You want to keep your website as updated as possible to ensure that vulnerabilities are plugged and that you aren’t going to be low hanging fruit for hackers.
2. Things Will Stop Functioning
A lot of the features on your site may simply cease to work. This could be due to the plugin being no longer updated or even because there is no longer proper communication between the code/servers.
3. No More Patches
If your website isn’t being supported any longer, you are likely going to be dealing with a situation where the technical people behind it won’t be fixing any bugs or making any patches that address present issues in the current build. Instead, they will be working on the newer versions.
4. Help Is Difficult To Get
Effectively finding someone who is capable of using an older platform is going to get much more difficult. What was once a 5 to 10-minute fix will begin to require a lot more manpower and hours. After all, the demand simply isn’t there for people to focus on it.
What You Can Do About It:
1. Nothing Is An Option
Your website isn’t going to simply detonate overnight. There are even niche forums and clubs that you can tap into to try to keep your older platform alive. However, you need to realize that not only will it become risky, but the odds will be stacked against you at that point.
2. Upgrade Your Site
You could find that it is very affordable to downright expensive to upgrade your older site to the most current version available. This is primarily be determined by how significant the chance is from your current version to the new one. A lot of developers will provide a free upgrade if the change is being made within a certain range of time. However, it’s important to understand that the more significant the gap is between versions the more likely your code isn’t going to hold up and that something will break during the upgrade process.
3. Start From Scratch
You may find that your platform is completely abandoned. You will find it difficult to find a host, no one will actively work on it. At this point, it will be effectively dead. If you find yourself in this situation, you will have no other choice but to start from scratch. Luckily, there are newer and more sustainable platforms that can make your website exceptional and it can boost your performance both in terms of the end user’s experience and your SEO rankings.
If you’ve been told that your website is not going to be supported for much longer or at all, you can call us. We will be able to assist you in figuring out what the best way to proceed is. We look forward to hearing from you.