I’m starting to see this happen more and more. A site owner will contact us in a panic, stating, “I don’t know what happened, but my sales are dying.” Or “For some reason our search engine rankings are down considerably.” Or even worse, their unattended site has been hacked.
“What’s happening to my website?” “Why can’t I increase sales?”
What we’re seeing now is that many sites are losing traffic, visitors and search engine rankings daily and the situation is about to get much worse.
This is what we call Dead Site Syndrome.
Dead Site Syndrome is when you let your website just sit there. You have it LIVE online, but for all intents and purposes your site is technically dead or like a zombie. Somewhat animated but no results, no substance and no sales.
I’ve talked to several new clients lately and some of their sites have become so neglected and dead that hackers have broken in and stolen information and (in one case) the hacker had been redirecting all the clients search engine traffic to a bogus website.
And they had no idea what was happening until we logged in and discovered the truth. In this particular case the hacker was even bold enough to leave a text file on the web server that stated he was indeed a hacker from Turkey, signing the site with “Have a nice life.”
There are still tons of websites out there that don’t have even the basic security. 5-10 years ago information type sites could operate without a lot of security. This is NOT the case today.
Google has even began dropping sites and/or their rankings due to lack of site security. What this means is that these sites are dead in terms of finding new customers or gaining new sales.
Another reason why this situation is about to get worse is because site owners have become complacent and don’t understand the risks that are now proliferating across the web. Some older sites are rife with malware setup to steal traffic, mine for Bitcoins or run small advertisements that use your site to bring in traffic and sales for them. Old/dated sites telegraph to these hackers that security in your office is probably lacking as well. Now you’re vulnerable to ransomware, (where they steal your important files) such as QuickBooks files and lock them down until you pay a ransom.
Why leave your site out in the cold to just wither away? Why leave your business vulnerable to theft or hacks? Think about it, if you don’t care about site updates, secure code and sales why keep the site out there at all? Why leave your business open just to be robbed?
Did your business die or is it just your website?
We can help with all that. Contact us today!