lifespan of a website
In most cases a website has a long life, provided of course that everything is going well with your business, hobby or portfolio, you can always keep the website alive and attracting visitors. What exactly is the life of a website? And what changes does a website need to make during its lifetime? Let's discuss this in this blog post.
A website does not stand still in most cases, there are always articles going live, new content updates, updates to the website itself in terms of technology and function, and many other parts that change throughout its life. The lifespan of a website is also often determined by a number of external factors, such as is there someone still keeping the website alive or working on it regularly? Or has the website been sitting idle for years? Often websites that act purely as business cards are not as exciting in their development. Not much happens after the website first goes live and is created. Websites like a web store, portfolio, or corporate website often go through several changes. The technology in the background updates, and new products, features, and content are often added. Let's dive deeper into the changes a website goes through in its lifecycle.
The appearance of a website
Gone are the days when a website was only viewed on a large screen of a desktop, with the first smartphones this has already been set in motion. And with almost everyone now owning an internet enabled mobile phone, this is even the majority of visitors to your website. A website that is mobile friendly has been around for quite some time. Where a website used to get a separate URL or subdomain, this is no longer the case. A website needs to be suitable for all devices and have the same functionality. For example, a web store needs to be able to take orders from a mobile phone, tablet and laptop or desktop.
Many older websites that you still come across occasionally are not suitable for this, and you have to use a combination of zooming in and out to reach the information. Or you might see a different URL for it, like m.sidn.nl. Which is out of date.
So once you see that your website is lagging behind, it's time to look at the lifecycle of your website. If your website is no longer suitable for viewing on all devices, it's time to either switch to a new website or a new look.
New content for a website
New content for a website should become a regular item on the agenda. If you've been running a website for a long time and haven't done anything to it in a while, and you lack the motivation to keep going. Then it may also be time to say goodbye to the website and shut it down. If you no longer have the drive to write for a website or a topic, it can be quite a task for you to keep going.
Without new content, a website can fade into oblivion and never be visited again, search engine algorithms don't stand still and neither does your competition. If your website keeps dropping in Google search results and you have no motivation to keep working on it. It could be a sign that the life cycle of a website is coming to an end.
New technology for a website
If a website is not kept up to date with the latest underlying technology, the lifespan of a website hosting will also shorten significantly. Risks associated with this include data loss due to version lags. Malware injections in leaks that are found to take over the website to spread. Once you publish a website and then neglect to maintain it, it's only a matter of time before something breaks, gets taken over, or otherwise goes wrong. Maintaining a website is another item that needs to be done at least once a month. If you take the right steps to do this, it's an hour's work. If you let things get out of hand, it can sometimes take up to a week.
Taking over a website
If you change your mind about a website, you may also decide to sell it. There are several places or marketplaces where you can put your website up for sale. If a website has a good story and good content, it's often worth more than you might think. And it never hurts to put it on a marketplace to see what you can get. So keep that in mind when you see the life of a site stagnating on your watch. And maybe sell to someone who wants to continue and extend the website.
When is it time for a new website?
For all these reasons, a website can sink in search results and become a thing of the past. And thus be considered a "dead" website. After all, is a website without visitors still useful? This is often not the case. A website that no longer receives visitors, does not perform well in search engines and is no longer maintained. Then it is time to say goodbye to the website, because the costs for a website remain, although they are of course very low at MijnHostingPartner.nl.
