How To Deal With Your Website’s Errors

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Unless you own your web server and have coded the scripts of your website you’ll have little trouble finding the cause of errors your site may encounter. But for the rest of those who rely on external services, dealing with errors may be a major headache.

Many bloggers are ill prepared when it comes to the malfunctioning of their weblogs. Some become so defeated that they abandon their site; others get so overwhelmed they don’t seek help; still others do their own unscrupulous tinkering causing much further damage.

In the advent of any errors experienced by our site, it is imperative that we take the appropriate approach in addressing the problem.

Keep Track of Your Settings

First and foremost, it is wise to have a journal of your website. By this I mean records of everything within your site. You must have a detailed account of the general settings, the plugins or ad-ons installed, the contents, and any major activities you have performed on your site. You will need this information should an error occur and it will be very helpful should you seek the assistance of support services.

So if you haven’t developed any journal yet, start one now, this will save you a great deal. Also, make sure you regularly backup your sites most important files. In this way you will always have something to go back to. Believe me, this is a life saver.

If You Face A Major Error, Contact Your Hosting Company

Should an unexpected activity suddenly manifest on your site—i.e., site does not load, display is jumbled, http error codes, site hacked (God forbid!)—you must always remember not to panic. The immediate thing you need to do is to ask for assistance. Your server provider’s support services will play a vital role in troubleshooting your sites problem. The fastest assistance can be gained thru chat with the server’s technicians and troubleshooters.

Keep in mind though that assistance personnel may vary in their technical knowledge. If the personnel whom you’ve addressed your problem cannot solve your concern try another one, believe me you will find one who is more knowledgeable that can help you. Oftentimes, this method is more than enough to relinquish your problem.

Still, support personnel have limitations in that they their assistance can only cover server configuration related problems. More often than not, they cannot help if the problem lies within your web platform. If certain errors are outside of your web servers configuration, then you have to check any alterations you have made on your web publishing application. If you are using WordPress it is imperative to familiarize your self with its codex.

Most of the errors we experience from our website spawn from the alterations we introduce by means of messing with the source code or the introduction of applications like plugins or add-ons. Every time you make changes to the code, be sure to journal where you’ve made the changes and save a copy of the original source code; in case an error when you alter the source code, you can restore it back by restoring the original.

Plugins also cause some errors on our site. Since we are not familiar with it’s coding and behavior, it may pose a conflict with other add-ons or the publishing application itself. In this case, having a backup of your system is extremely important. But before deciding to restore your back-up, consider tinkering first with the plugins. Assuming that you have a journal of the activities you made with your site, you will be able to pinpoint, where the problem has started. It could be a plugin you have installed recently that caused your web error. Of course, the viable solution is to disable it. In the past I have had problems with upgrading my WordPress automatically; even the support personnel of my server provider can’t give any solution. What I did was I disabled all my plugins before I upgraded, and this methods works without any hustle. Have I not tinkered a bit, I would have not find a solution. Remember to consider some calculated tinkering; this may give you some hint about the problem.

Having errors popped out of our website is indeed depressing, but instead of wallowing in frustration we should focus our energies in finding solutions. The above-stated methods I have tried and tested during those periods when errors continuously bugged my website. I’m so happy to have learned from this experience. And now I share it with you.