A hosting plan rents space on a server and keeps that server running. Updating the site's software, keeping restorable backups and watching for trouble usually sit outside it, and that gap is where most problems start.

What the invoice pays for

Once a year, an invoice arrives for hosting. It is often the only regular cost attached to the website, so it is easy to assume it covers the website.

It covers a place for the website to run: space on a server, the connection to the internet, and the server's own upkeep.

Whether the site on that server is updated, backed up in a way that can be restored, or watched for trouble is a separate question, and usually a separate job.

Most small business site problems start in the space between those two things.

What is usually included

The fifth is the one most often misunderstood. Host backups exist so the host can recover a failed server, and many hosting terms say plainly that they are not guaranteed for any single site.

What usually is not

The software that makes up the site itself: WordPress, the theme, every plugin. The host keeps the server patched; what is installed on it is normally yours to update, and most hosting terms say so.

Checking that a backup can actually be restored. A copy nobody has tried to restore is a hope rather than a backup.

Cleaning up after a hack. Many hosts will suspend an infected account to protect the server, then leave the repair to the customer.

Watching the site from outside, so somebody knows within minutes when it stops loading or a form stops sending.

And the content: new pages, changed prices, holiday hours.

Updates nobody is doing

A WordPress site is a stack of software from different authors, each releasing fixes on its own schedule.

When nobody applies those fixes, the site drifts further behind every month. Outdated plugins are one of the commonest ways into a small business site, because the flaws in old versions are published along with the fixes.

The host sees none of this. From the server's point of view, an outdated plugin is just a customer's files.

Email, certificates and the quieter parts

Email on the same plan works until the mailboxes fill their share of the storage, or until another account on the same server sends spam and the server's address lands on a blocklist.

Free certificates renew themselves, as long as the domain still points at the server. Move the domain's settings elsewhere and renewal can fail quietly, until browsers start warning visitors.

The domain itself may be renewed somewhere else entirely, with the registrar, on its own date.

Support that answers a different question

Host support is good at questions about the server: whether it is up, how to add an email account, where a setting lives in the control panel.

Ask why the contact form stopped sending, or why the home page looks wrong after an update, and the answer tends to be polite and short. It is outside what the plan covers.

That is not unhelpfulness. A host with thousands of accounts cannot learn how each site was built.

A worked example

A bed and breakfast on one of the Gulf Islands had a website made for it in 2015, on a hosting plan its owners renewed every year without reading.

They believed the plan covered the website. It covered the server: space, email, a certificate, and nightly backups kept for a week.

Last summer, the booking page began sending some visitors to a pharmacy site. A plugin untouched since 2016 had been exploited, and the host suspended the account to protect everyone else on the server.

Every backup the host held was less than a week old, and the infection had been there for about a month. Restoring any of them restored the problem.

The site was rebuilt from a clean copy of the original files, with the abandoned plugin replaced. The owners now pay for maintenance: monthly updates, backups stored elsewhere for ninety days, and a person who checks.

Why the gap causes the trouble

Nobody in this arrangement is careless. Each party is doing exactly what it believes its job to be.

The host maintains the server. The designer built the site and moved on to the next project. The owner pays both and assumes, reasonably, that between them the site is looked after.

The work that belongs to nobody (updates, tested backups, watching) is precisely the work that prevents most emergencies.

Too often it comes to light in a suspension notice, which is the most expensive possible moment to discover it.

What looking after a site involves

Updates applied on a schedule, tested on a copy first when they are large. Backups stored away from the server, kept for weeks rather than days, and restored as a test now and then.

Monitoring from outside the server. A check on certificate and domain renewal dates. An eye on the PHP version, which hosts rarely change without being asked.

And one named person, at the business or at whoever maintains the site, who knows all of it is happening.

The counter-case

The gap is smaller for some sites.

A plain HTML site with no plugins and no database has far less software to keep current, and its backup is a folder of files.

Some hosting plans include site-level care, such as managed updates and longer backups. They cost more, and the details still need reading, since included updates rarely mean tested updates.

And where an in-house IT person already handles updates and backups, the gap is narrower. Ask them, specifically, what they check and how often.

For everyone else, the rule holds: renting the server is not the same as looking after the site, and both need doing.

Questions to settle this month

  1. Find the hosting invoice and the plan name.
  2. Ask how long the host keeps backups.
  3. Ask who updates WordPress and the plugins.
  4. Keep one backup somewhere other than the server.
  5. Check the certificate renews on its own.
  6. Confirm who receives the host's warning emails.
  7. Name one person responsible for the rest.

Step seven is the one that closes the gap. Every other item can be done by somebody, but only a named person makes sure each one actually is.

One of the things sitting in the gap on many older sites is covered in the PHP version your site runs on.

Frequently asked questions

What does a typical hosting plan include?

Space on a server, a control panel, email accounts on your domain, often a free certificate, some short-term backups, and upkeep of the server itself by the host.

Does my host update WordPress and plugins?

Usually not. The host maintains the server, while the software installed on it is normally the account holder's responsibility, and most hosting terms say so.

Are the host's backups enough on their own?

Rarely. They are often kept for a short time and not guaranteed for any single site, and a problem older than the oldest copy is in every one of them.

Why will host support not fix my site?

Support covers the server. A form that stopped sending or a page that broke after an update is the site's own software, which sits outside what the plan pays for.

Why does the gap cause so many problems?

Because each party assumes another is handling it. Updates, tested backups and monitoring end up belonging to nobody, and they are exactly the work that prevents emergencies.

What does looking after a site involve?

Scheduled updates, backups stored away from the server and restored as a test, monitoring from outside, checks on certificate and domain renewals, and one named person responsible.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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