If your Web site was built more than three years ago, it’s probably time to renovate. Web technologies are constantly changing and sites need to be adapted to different environments that didn’t exist just a few years back. Many older sites don’t play very well with smartphones and tablets (or even laptops). If you haven’t yet, you owe it to yourself to view your existing site on a tablet such as the iPad: you may be surprised to find important elements are not functioning, are displaying badly — even missing outright — due to software and/or hardware incompatibilities. If your site has Flash on it, no one on an iPhone or iPad can use that part of your site.

In addition to the basic presentation or functionality of older Web sites, hackers have an open door through which to attack if software is not kept up-to-date. Outdated software is the leading cause of site infections, and reinfections. It is highly encouraged that you upgrade all software immediately. Developers constantly update to block hacks and address security flaws in their software, and if you don’t apply those patches or updates quickly, your site is vulnerable. This means that you should install the latest version of Joomla or WordPress, keep the various plugins that give additional functionality to your site updated, as well as actively monitor your site to prevent intrusion and deal with any issues instantly.

Sometimes, major updates to Content Management Systems (CMS) are not simple or straightforward — the entire architecture of Joomla changed after version 1.5x which means that upgrading to the latest version 3.x can require a complete rebuild of the site. We have migrated a number of clients from Joomla to WordPress when we got to this juncture: WordPress is an excellent open-source CMS that we recommend to all clients.

If you have an older site and wish it were easier to maintain or manage, or if you’ve been hacked and need to harden your site so it doesn’t happen again, give us a shout and we’ll discuss how we can help renovate your site.