I wanted to take some time to explain to our clients what our WordPress Management & Malware Removal Package is and why it is something we recommend as an add on for your WordPress Website.  Our package is very cost effective at £65 + VAT per year.  A malware removal package from GoDaddy is £239.99 at time of writing (https://uk.godaddy.com/web-security/malware-removal).  We provide the service UK Business Hours with best effort outside those hours (the more expensive one listed is 24/7 coverage).  Our ultimate aim with the package is to stop malware before it hits your website but we will help remove malware in the unlikely event you get infected.

Our WordPress Management Service is a cost effective way to ensure your website remains up to date at all times and helps ensure you keep it malware and virus free.  It also means you get free access to our WordPress experts should the worst happen and your website become compromised.

It is very important to keep your WordPress Core, Plugins and Themes up to date.  Updates come out regularly to address security concerns and once a vulnerability is ‘in the wild’ it can easily be used to hack your website. The vast majority of all malware issues we deal with on our helpdesk are a result of clients who do not look after their website and leave it with plugins etc not updated.

We have answered some of the most frequently asked questions about this service.  Anything else you need to know please reach out to our team.

What do you do if I buy WordPress Management?
We do a weekly check on your website to see if any updates are available for the WordPress Core, WordPress Plugins or your Theme.  We will then proceed to update the software for you. Themes that you purchased from websites such as Themeforest we can only update if you either provide logins to download the new versions or send us the new versions as we need to ensure copyright is adhered to.   We backup your data before we make changes and test the website before and after the updates to ensure everything still works as it should.  Taking a backup means we can quickly revert our changes and work to troubleshoot should the update break your website. We will also install security plugins to ensure your website is kept secure as well as offering advice on securing your WordPress back end logins.  You also get access to our WordPress experts where you can get security advice.

What does it cost?
It’s £65 + VAT per year and that gives you 52 weekly checks where we perform our updates.  It’s also like an insurance policy as in the unlikely event your website gets hacked our WordPress Experts will work for as long as it takes on a best effort basis to clean your website.  For clients who do not have this product we bill our time at between £40 and £60 per hour depending on the staff member needed to solve the issue.

Surely this should be part of my Web Hosting charges?
Unfortunately it’s not. No Web Host we are aware of provide this service free of cost with a standard shared or reseller hosting package as malware removal and cleaning is a costly exercise in terms of staff time.  On average it can take a couple of hours to clean an infected WordPress website.   If a client without WordPress Management does get hacked it’s important they look into why the hack happened and keep things up to date (see below for scans we can run to help you).

I want to do it myself how can you help?
Our team will offer general advice and we have a WordPress Specialist Team who work UK Business Hours.  We can also help you by running a malware scan and vulnerability scan on your WordPress Website and provide you with the results.  Both these services are free of cost.  The Malware Scan will look at every file in your web hosting account for known malware injections and provide a list for manual review.  Our Vulnerability Scanning will provide a comprehensive list of every module in your WordPress website and tell you the version you have installed, the latest version as well as list any known vulnerabilities in the version you are using.  This works for the WordPress Core, Plugins and Themes.  It’s true to say that in nearly all cases where we deal with Malware the WordPress website is shown to be vulnerable in that the client has not updated the Plugins or Core Version to patch known vulnerabilities.  We cannot stress how important this is!

Our sales team are waiting to help you sign up to start protecting your website.  Have a chat with them today – they work 7.30am – 11.30pm Weekdays and 9am-9pm Weekends.  If you contact outside these times the support team will queue your question until the next morning.