WordPress Website Hosting & Maintenance

Before starting a hosting and maintenance plan, Marketeering Group’s developers will evaluate your website to determine the level of complexity, which is based on how much time we’ll need to keep your website up-to-date and fully secured. Some examples of sites with high complexity include those with e-commerce, membership, registration/scheduling, online classes, and other complex online applications. Outdated or custom themes and plugins can also increase the complexity level.

If you are planning to move your current website to our hosting from another platform, we must first complete the Website Hosting Audit & Migration service to make sure your website is completely up to date and secure, so as not to put our servers at risk.

Once the site is moved onto our servers, we will begin the maintenance service, running updates once per month, and maintaining security for the site. From this point, the service is typically hands-off for you. If we run into any issues with updates, such as expired plugin licenses, abandoned tools, or other security risks that require additional considerations, we will contact you with the details. And if you run into any issues with your site, you can contact us for assistance, and we’ll help you troubleshoot the problem. (Troubleshooting is subject to the limitations in our Terms & Conditions.)

• Before the WordPress Hosting & Maintenance service begins, our Hosting Audit & Migration service is required. If the audit uncovers additional complexity in maintaining the website, the monthly Hosting & Maintenance cost may increase. We will notify the client of the additional costs, and request approval, before moving forward with the service.
• Marketeering Group will run WordPress, theme and plugin updates on your site once a month to maintain site security and performance. We test all updates on a staging site before they are made live.
• Marketeering Group may decide not to update certain tools or plugins, if it is deemed that the update will negatively affect the website.
• We will be unable to update any paid themes or plugins where the client does not hold a valid, up-to-date license for the tool. If we notice any missing or out-of-date licenses, we will notify the client, and it will be their responsibility to pay for the license in order to receive the latest updates for that tool.
• At times, a theme or plugin may be abandoned by the author, and no further updates will be provided. Abandoned tools may lead to security or functionality issues on the site. If this is the case, we will contact the client with a recommendation for a replacement. The client will be responsible for any fees associated with purchasing the replacement tool, as well as the additional hourly rate for the development time required to install and configure the new tool. We will provide a quote for these costs and request approval before additional work is started.
• The client must not change or deactivate the Marketeering Group WordPress users, as we will need full access to keep the site secure and up to date.
• The client must not remove any of the security plugins on the site. (These could include WordFence, Sucuri, Google ReCaptcha, Math Captcha, SF Move Login, Updraft Plus, or others. We can provide a full list of the security plugins on the client site by request.)
• Strong passwords are required for all users (a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols).
• Marketeering Group must have access to your domain registration so that we can update or troubleshoot DNS issues that may arise. If you update your domain registration password, please send us the updated credentials.
• If requested, the client will be given WordPress dashboard access, to make updates to their website.
• If the client makes any updates to the website theme or plugins, including adding or removing themes or plugins, editing theme files, or updating to newer theme or plugin versions, Marketeering Group must be notified of the change as soon as possible, so that we can prevent conflicts with our ongoing maintenance work. If new tools are added to the website, the complexity level of the site may be affected, and the monthly hosting and maintenance costs may increase. The fixing of any issues with the site, which are caused by client-run updates, will be quoted at hourly development rates. Please contact Marketeering Group before making updates to the website, if you are concerned about this.
• The client will not have access to the server where the website is hosted, but can be provided with SFTP access for their site by request.
• If your site goes down or you see an issue while Marketeering Group is maintaining the site, please email siteupdates@marketeeringgroup.com or call 206-327-9627.
• After-hours support for major website issues, such as site outages or malware attacks, is provided through our partnership with our hosting provider WP Engine. Marketeering Group does not monitor website downtime notifications or provide support outside of normal business hours (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm PST). We will provide you with a support number and install name that you may use to contact WP Engine’s support team in the case of a website outage outside of these hours. This after-hours support number is not to be used for help with website editing, such as changing content or design.
• Technical support and troubleshooting is only available for issues that are caused by the hosting platform, Marketeering Group’s maintenance updates, or attacks by outside forces. This does not include support for issues caused by any edits the client or other third party made to the website. Domain registration expiration, DNS issues and SSL expirations are also not covered, nor are any other issues not directly related to the hosting and maintenance service. We can offer support for these additional types of issues for an additional hourly charge.
• We do not provide email services with our hosting and maintenance plan. As such, any email set-up or troubleshooting for email issues is not included in this product.
• We are not responsible for any spam messages you may receive through your email or website contact forms. We will install tools to mitigate spam coming through the website, but offer no guarantees that spam will be blocked before it reaches you. As we do not provide email services, we are unable to configure your personal email inbox for spam prevention.
• We are unable to provide troubleshooting or configuration support for issues on personal computers, mobile devices or networks. If an issue seems to be relegated to a specific device or network, we can recommend a third-party tech support company for further diagnostics.
• This product does not include updates to website content or design. If you would like to change the way your website looks or functions, those edits can be purchased through our WordPress Website Revisions product.
• Due to the sometimes unpredictable nature of technology, including websites, servers, and hosting platforms, Marketeering Group does not take responsibility for any issues that may arise with your website while hosted or maintained with us. This includes any website hacks or malware attacks that happen while your website is hosted with us, as well as any issues caused by failures in the hosting platform or conflicts caused by website updates. We strive to keep your website up and running well at all times, but cannot guarantee that the site will not break or go down. We will do our best to fix any hosting or maintenance related issues in a timely manner, but can not be held accountable for any negative consequences to your business that may arise from such issues.
• It is the client’s responsibility to assure that the website is compliant with all applicable laws, rules and regulations for your industry, audience, and location. Marketeering Group does not guarantee any specific compliance as part of the website maintenance package.
• Our hosting service is provided through the WP Engine platform, and as such, the relevant WP Engine Terms & Conditions apply.
• If the client wishes to remove their website from our hosting at any time, we will provide them with a full backup of their website files within a week of their request. Alternatively, our developers can also perform a full website migration to another hosting environment for a $520 fee.
• Marketeering Group retains the right to remove your website from our hosting and terminate your hosting and maintenance subscription at any time. If we feel that your website is negatively affecting our server, due to site size, bandwidth usage, visitor count, site security, or other reason, we may contact you to discuss moving your site to your own dedicated hosting account and switching to our non-hosted maintenance package. If we fully terminate your hosting agreement, we will provide you with a full backup of your website files, so that you may transfer to another hosting provider. Any associated costs for the new hosting account and/or the migration of the website to the new account may be the sole responsibility of the client.

Is the website built in WordPress?

• If yes – we can likely host the site and/or manage maintenance, pending a site review
• If no – we cannot host or maintain the website

Do they want to move to our hosting account?

• If yes – we can perform our full “hosting and maintenance” service, pending a successful “hosting audit & migration” service
• If no – we can perform our more limited “non-hosted maintenance” service, pending a review of their hosting platform and website set-up

Can we get full access to their current hosting account (or full FTP and database access)?

• If no – we cannot migrate their site to our account, or perform non-hosted maintenance

Can we get access to their domain registration and DNS records?

• If no – we may not be able to migrate their site or troubleshoot domain issues

If moving to our hosting, are they ok with some downtime on their website during the transfer?

• Depending on their current set-up, this could be anywhere from a few minutes to 72 hours, in extreme cases. It’s usually no more than a couple of hours. We can provide a more accurate estimate after reviewing their current set-up.