Spring Cleaning For Webmasters?

Yes it’s true, even webmasters have spring cleaning to do.  In the northern half of the world the seasons are starting to change and it’s starting to get nice outside once again.  Yes, spring time is back.  While every one typically loves this time of year where the sun starts to come out and the bird are chirping.. we also hate this time of year because there’s no doubt that someone is going to come by and remind us to clean out the garage, closet, or any other space that we have been ignoring for the last year.

For webmasters it is no different, It’s time to do some spring cleaning on our web accounts…

It’s important for webmasters, site owners, and site designers to go though a checklist of item’s on their websites at least once a year to make sure everything is working properly.  All too often does someone get busy and lets their site go unchecked for too long and something has gone wrong in the meantime.  This is especially true for those of you that are running a business and trying to take on your website design/maintenance duties all on your own.  Here’s a simple list of items that everyone should check at least once a year on their site to make sure everything is still up to par.

1. Eliminate Website Errors
   Do a quick run through of your site checking all the pages and links.  Make sure everything is working as expected.  Nothing can make a website visitor leave faster then a website error or a dead link.  Just think about how many times you have been frustrated with a site when you clicked on a link and got a 404 page or a database error.
2. Double Check Cross Browser Compatibility
   Webmasters are having to worry about this now more then ever.  Times used to be easy when you built a site for Internet Explorer and you didn’t have to worry about any other browsers.  These days many users are moving away from Internet Explorer and going to different browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome.  Currently the Weberz.com website gets about 45% of our traffic from Firefox users,  that starts to be too much market share to ignore.  Download each of these browsers and play around on your own site to ensure every thing looks and works as expected.  We wouldn’t wont to loose out on visitors because we were inconsiderate of their browser choice.
3. Remove Unwanted Applications and Scripts
   Every webmaster at one point or another has loaded a web script in a directory or sub domain to play with some new software.  The problem is that sometimes we forget to remove the applications when we are done and they sit out there available on the net.  All too many times these forgotten applications end up being upgraded by the vendors due to a security hole but the older version is still loaded by the webmaster.  Many of these security holes can allow hackers to gain access to the server and allow them to change your web files.  This can end in some horrible results.  Take the time to clean these older and unwanted applications off the web server and save yourself some headaches in the future.
4. Remove Unwanted Databases
   Many of the applications and web scripts mentioned in #3 had databases setup with them during the webmaster’s testing phase.  Be sure to remove these as well for the exact same reasons.  No need to leave these out there if the application is now gone.
5. Upgrade Wanted Web Applications
   Every web script on the planet tends to get updates from the people who made them.  As mentioned in #3 these are normally due to security problems or new features.  Make sure that the web scripts you are still using are on the latest version and still secure.  There’s really nothing worse then waking up one morning only to find out your website has been defaced because you didn’t upgrade your phpBB, Oscommerce, or another web script to the latest version.  If your going to continue to use these scripts on your website,  my suggestion would be to sign up for the vendors announcements email list so you get notified every time they update the script.  Then if there is a security release you can upgrade right away.
6. Remove Unwanted Email Addresses from the Control Panel
   Old employee’s, dead email addresses, and failed idea’s… These are all the things that cause us to clean up these email addresses.  No real point to them staying out there taking up unnecessary space.
7. Remove Old Website Content
   This is probably the hardest of them all.  Chances are that there is some sort of content on your website that doesn’t really apply anymore.  These could be an old article you typed up about some great new widgets that were hitting the market, or simply a page you created about a promotion you were doing on your website.  What makes this task hard is deciding what goes and what stays.  If its a page about a promotion from two years ago, really there is no point in letting it sit out on the web.  It would simply be using up some of your web hosting space that could be used for something more current and relevant.  However if it is an article you typed up about great widgets, I am not sure I would delete it.  If that page has been included in the search engines and is drawing traffic from them then we wouldn’t want to remove it, however that’s another topic for another post.
8. Remove Unwanted Files from Your FTP
   This one is a fairly easy task.  Many users tend to accidentally upload files using FTP to their home directory instead of to a domain directory or they upload files to unzip a web script on the server and forget to remove the original zip file when they are finished.  If these files are not inside of your domain directory then they probably are not being used for anything other then file storage.  Unless you have a good reason for them being there, I would say now is the time to remove them.  The only exception to this rule is configuration files you have purposely moved outside the domain directory on the server so they are no longer accessible from the internet using a web browser, however that’s normally done by advanced users and they typically know which files these are.

That’s really all I can think of for now, If we come up with more I will add them to the comments below or save them for next years spring cleaning idea’s.  It can greatly improve your online users web experience if your properly maintaining your website and account.  Happy online users typically results in word of mouth exposure and repeat visitors, so its always worth the time it takes to do these things.  It’s also possible that lowering the amount of domains, sub domains, databases and space your using with unwanted items can lower your monthly hosting bill too, that is if you have been paying any overage fee’s on these items.

Post Tagged With: Webmasters