First Time Blogging WordPress Maintenance shows you different methods you can use to maintain a healthy and stable environment for your blogs.
Last Updated: January 25, 2023
Latest News: Updated the documentation.
Photo by woodsy from Rgbstock website.
First Time Blogging WordPress Maintenance
Manage Revisions
WordPress creates revisions in your site every time you create a new post, a new page or edit the page or post. These revisions can accumulate very quickly and increase the size of your site and the database as well. The following plugin Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions, can help you clean your revisions.
Check Data Structure
You need to stay on top of your data displayed in your website. Google has a tool that is free to use and will allow you to test your webpages data structure further for any errors and bad coding it might find. Click on the following URL google.com/structured-data/testing-tool to learn more. It is important to check the data structure when you first develop a website. You should also carry this test every now and then just to make sure your structure is not altered.
Check for broken links
Broken links are very important to repair. Links in your site will always break for various reasons. One of the major reasons this happens is because you keep updating and changing links, links structure and URL’s.
The following plugin Broken link checker, can help you repair any broken links found in your site.
However some of you might prefer online services. This is because you might already have too many plugins installed in your site and you don’t want to add more plugins. In that case the list below should help you.
Note: The more plugins you have running in your site the more resources your website needs from your server.
Online Broken Link Checker Services:
- brokenlinkcheck. This is an online service that works very well for you. The best part about this service is that it uses it’s own server to check for any broken links in your site.
- Xenu Link Sleuth: This is a windows only utility.
- Integrity: This is a Macintosh only utility.
- Auditmypc: This service helps you create a sitemap for your site and it also reports any broken links and other errors that might show up when scanning your website.
Information: You might also be interested in the following tutorial Google Webmaster Tools Broken Links Tutorial.
Redirection Tools
When changing URLs in your site, make sure you redirect the old URL to the new URL. If you don’t carry out this action you run the risk of loosing all the followers who are currently link to that page or post. The following plugin redirection can help you manage the redirection in your site.
Other Redirection Tools
- Yoast has a great tool to create a redirect link structure. The code from this tool is added to your .htaccess file.
Monitor Your Websites
Uptimerobot will keep track of your websites, blogs for free for up to 50 sites. Anything above 50 will incur a fee.
Important: Keep checking your plugins, theme and WordPress to make sure they are up to date.
With the release of WordPress 3.7 and above, a new feature for website administrators and developers was introduced. The new feature allows for automatic update WordPress core files, plugins, themes and more. Please read the following article The definitive guide to disabling auto updates by Andrew Nacin to learn more. While you are reading this article pay attention to the plugin that is mentioned.
Check Server Status
There are times when your website or server might be down. This is unavoidable and unfortunately it happens from time to time. When this happens you should keep calm and not panic. The following URLs can help.
Check If Server is Down
After using the above links, you will have information about your server or site whether they are down or not. This allows you to take the appropriate action to resolve this issue. If you are not your server administrator you will have to get in contact with your host. Once they fix the issue you should be able to access your site. If you still can’t access your site then you might have other issues that need further investigations. These issues could be related locally with your home network or internet connection.
You can try the following steps to try and fix your home internet issues. The problem could be related to your computer, laptop, Internet connection, modem/ router, dongle or other.
Steps To Check Your Site
- First try to check your site using your mobile device like a tablet or mobile phone. Make sure you use your mobile carrier (Not WiFi or home internet connection).
- If the above does not help you, try to connect to your site via the following URL http://www.isitdownrightnow.com mentioned above.
Test Your Email Account
There are times that you might have e-mail issues. The following URL Mail Tester can help you troubleshoot some issues you might be having with your e-mails not sending or receiving.
Recommended Links:
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This is the end of my tutorial list. I hope these tutorials can help you manage and maintain a healthy site online.
You can also check my WordPress setup tutorials. I am constantly adding new ones.
If you have any questions please let me know. I will be updating this post from time to time so keep coming back for the latest.
Enjoy.
First Time Blogging Using WordPress List:
I have been working in IT since 1999 and I enjoy the challenges it brings me. I love developing websites with WordPress. I spend a lot of time helping out in wordpress.org forums. I have been writing tutorials since 2011. Now I am learning how to manage my own VPS "Virtual Private Server.