WordPress maintenance and hosting

WordPress maintenance refers to all the actions taken to ensure the long-term technical functioning of your website.

Maintenance operations can be categorized into three main areas:

Preventive maintenance

These are all actions carried out regularly to reduce the risk of malfunctions on your site.

For example:

• Updates to the WordPress core, themes, and extensions.
• Updates to the PHP version of the hosting.
• Regular backups.
• Monitoring of site availability, PHP errors, server errors, etc.
• Functional testing of key elements of your site. Quentin Le Duff is ISTQB — Certified Tester Foundation certified by GASQ.

Corrective maintenance

This is when there is a problem with your website, and it involves all the necessary steps taken to get your WordPress website up and running again.

For example:

• Detecting issues and analyzing causes.
• Correcting errors.
• Restoring data.

Evolving maintenance

This concerns the improvements you will want to make to your website during its lifetime. Our role will range from simple advice and recommendations to a joint costed intervention so that we can implement the functionality you need.

For example:

• Web quality checks on your site. I am certified by Opquast as a trainer and web quality advisor.
• Custom PHP code updates to keep up with changes in programming language versions.
• Adding new features.
• Adaptation to standards and regulations, with a particular focus on the GDPR, RGESN, and RGAA.

Support is provided by email, phone, or videoconference.

Depending on your offer, it includes occasional editing of your website and is based on an hourly rate tailored to your package:

• Freelancer: 30 minutes available per month — does not include website editing service.
• Partner: 45 minutes available per month — includes a website editing service.
• Pilot: 90 minutes available per month — includes a website editing service.

A summary email is sent after the intervention. When you request it, you will also be informed of the remaining balance of time available for the month. If you need additional hours, these will be billed at our rates.

Unused minutes cannot be carried over or accumulated from one month to the next.

Secure daily automatic updates

Security updates (core, themes, extensions) for your WordPress site are automatically performed every day whenever possible, with an advanced verification system to ensure compatibility before any updates are applied.

• Automatic external backup before updating.
• Scheduling updates during periods of low site traffic.
• Compatibility testing with the current version of WordPress before updating.
• Compatibility testing with the current version of PHP before updating.
• Automatic cache cleaning (page cache, object cache, and resource cache) after updates.
• Checking for unsupported extensions.
• All automatic updates are logged, notified, and continuously monitored.

Each site is unique, and certain extensions and custom developments will require special management and manual intervention. These technical elements will be identified during the initial site analysis, stipulated in your maintenance contract, and updated regularly by hand.

Enhance security with automatic updates

Each WordPress maintenance provider has its own way of managing updates: daily, monthly, yearly… It’s a time-consuming and sensitive task that can too often be overlooked.

This maintenance service offers daily and immediate updates for security purposes. According to SecuPress, 66% of WordPress hacks were carried out due to a vulnerability in an extension or theme. According to Sucuri, 39% of hacked sites were not up-to-date.

Secure automatic updates allow you to maintain a daily rhythm while limiting the risk of incompatibility, providing the best possible protection against security breaches while staying within your budget. In addition, upgrading your site to the common plugin base enhances the reliability of your updates.

WordPress website editing may include:

• Replacing photographs.
• Modification of texts.
• Adjusting plugin settings.
• Integrating your new content into the existing structure of the site.

This does not include:

• The development of new features.
• The complete drafting of new pages.
• Modifying your theme.

When you sign up for the hosting and maintenance package, we carry out an in-depth analysis of the technical structure of your website, including the version of WordPress, the theme, extensions, and custom developments*. These elements are then updated to the latest available versions. The PHP version is also updated.

A set of recommended plugins is offered to replace certain extensions already installed on the website. These alternatives, which are lighter and more robust, are free and allow for more peaceful management of updates in the long term. The installed and configured extensions offer similar functionality while providing better performance and enhanced security.

*Please note that custom code changes may or may not be supported, depending on their complexity and at my sole discretion.

Several sets of measures are in place to ensure the best possible security for your WordPress website:

• Daily updates to the WordPress core, themes, and plugins.
• External daily backups.
• Securing web hosting with antivirus software (Imunify360) and a firewall (WAF).
• Additional reinforcement measures detailed in the WordPress Security Checklist post, for example:
  • Protecting the login form against brute force attacks with my ZenPress plugin.
  • REST API protection.
  • Disabling XML-RPC…

Your data is backed up for up to 50 days by two separate systems:

• All of your hosting data (files, databases, mailboxes, etc.) is backed up daily (for up to 50 days) via an internal backup system.
• Your WordPress website is backed up daily (for up to 30 days) on an external storage server also hosted by Hosterra for controlled water and electricity consumption (Electricity < 18 kWh/year/TB, Water < 1.4 l/year/TB).

Your services are monitored on three levels:

• Continuous global monitoring of Hosterra hosting services.
• Continuous monitoring of your site’s availability with Uptime Kuma monitoring software. Alerts are received immediately in the event of a problem.
• Continuous monitoring of PHP errors (and JavaScript errors when necessary) on your website using Telebugs software. Alerts are received immediately in the event of an issue, allowing the necessary code fixes to be applied very quickly.

Broken website

Quick intervention on your site to get it up and running again. However, it is important to note that we cannot replace the developers of your themes and extensions. If they stop developing their products, updates to the core WordPress software and other themes and extensions will continue until a conflict arises.

Before reaching this point, you will be notified in advance and I will offer you technical solutions wherever possible. Please note that these upgrades are not included in your hosting and maintenance package: this is not a package to be confused with third-party application maintenance (TMA).

Hacked website

Your site is monitored continuously. If it is hacked or infected, immediate action is taken to secure and repair it. If these measures are unsuccessful, a backup of the site will be restored from the last 24 hours (or an earlier period if the security breach is older). Additional measures will then be discussed and taken with you to strengthen the site’s security against future attacks.

Your data is hosted by Hosterra, a web host committed to resource sustainability and the preservation of the environment and the planet. Your hosting space is fully managed, optimized, and upgraded to meet the specific needs of your WordPress website.

Water consumption and energy efficiency.

Your site is hosted in an energy-efficient data center that limits its water consumption. Two indicators to measure this are:

• PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness): This is the ratio of total energy consumed to the energy used by the servers. The closer it is to 1, the more efficient the data center is. The farther it strays from 1, the more electrical energy it wastes. An energy-efficient data center has a PUE of less than 1.5.
• WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness): This measures the water consumption of the data center. It indicates the number of liters of water required for every 1 kWh of electricity consumed. The closer it is to 0, the more efficient the data center is. The farther it moves from 0, the more water the data center consumes. An efficient water data center has a WUE of less than 0.2.

The data centers used by Hosterra average a PUE of 1.08 to 1.4 and a WUE of 0.01 to 0.09, with the option to view their performance indicators in real time.

• Saint-Ouen l’Aumône, Paris, France / PAR1 🇫🇷
• Vitry-sur-Seine, Paris, France / PAR2 🇫🇷

100% Renewable Energy

The share of renewable energy is the amount of renewable energy used by the data center compared to its overall consumption. Only hydro, wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy are considered renewable. Your site is hosted in a data center powered 100% by renewable energy.

APCu Object Cache to Reduce Your Site’s Electricity Consumption

Object caching is a mechanism that stores frequently used data in RAM or a fast storage system. Instead of making repeated requests, those that have already been made are served directly from this cache. This process already reduces your site’s electricity consumption.

There are several object caching systems. For your WordPress site, the APCu object cache is implemented because it consumes less electricity and generates less heat (which means it requires even less energy to cool the servers).

To learn more about this choice of object caching system, you can watch this conference by Pierre Lannoy: Object Cache for Eco-Design.

Your website is hosted on a shared hosting service called Hosterra One.

This eco-responsible hosting is powerful and ideal for your WordPress website. You can discover its advanced performance test for WordPress.

Technical specifications

Security systems

Your domain name is registered for you and in your name, you are the owner. The cost of the domain name is included in your WordPress hosting and maintenance package, up to €15 per year.

Transactional emails

A transactional email is an automated email sent to a single recipient to confirm an action. In the context of your website, this could be, for example:

• Emails received when someone submits a contact request form on your website.
• Order confirmation emails when you operate an online store.
• Update notification emails (WordPress core, plugins, themes, etc.).

Your offer is configured with a transactional email address (example: info@yourdomain.com) allowing you to send up to 100 emails per hour.

Professional email accounts

The hosting provided supports the creation of additional mailboxes, but email deliverability cannot be 100% guaranteed on shared hosting. In addition, the storage space used will be shared with your website.

If your business requires excellent deliverability, an additional service can be subscribed to starting at €6.90 per month for two professional mailboxes, still hosted by Hosterra with controlled water and electricity consumption (example: electricity < 1 kWh/year, water < 9 cl/year for two mailboxes).

You can easily cancel: after the minimum commitment period of six months, you can cancel at any time by email or phone, with one month’s notice before the end of the commitment period. Upon receipt of your request, I will confirm the contract end date by email.

A complete export (.zip files + SQL database) is provided, and assistance is available if needed to help you migrate your transactional mailboxes. External backups are kept for 30 days after termination, then permanently deleted.

No additional fees are charged.