Website Maintenance

[Todd]

I was visiting my own Sabin Figaro site today, because it's been a while, and I realized it's so weird how quickly things get old, and how often little things need to get updated. The copyright in the footer, for example, needs to be changed yearly (Unless I just write "2007-Present"), I need to go through my links page more often and remove dead links, several pages have a broken link for "contact" because I moved from dragonzord.net to nightbringer.net and missed a couple pages, oops... I need to re-add an affiliate who moved, who I thought closed a while back. I'm sure I could find more things needing tidied up if I took the time to clean up the site a bit. This is something I definitely intend to do, because I love this site, and it's up to my current standards and is perfect to me otherwise.

This brings me to my question: how often do you "Spring Clean" your websites? When you have more sites, this basic maintenance can fall behind. I guess I just didn't realize it until now.

[Mikari]

I haven't been doing spring cleaning for my older sites lately. There are just too many and some of the fandoms are not "over" so the content can get outdated as new media is released. I have most of my sites archived as a way to keep them online. Some age better than others depending on if new games or unexpected special episodes/movies were made.

There are a few sites that I do still maintain, but I don't follow a schedule. I add things when I have the time or the subject comes up. A while ago I added little buttons to my sites that label them as active and archived. Most of the active ones are about ongoing series or include joinables.

[Larissa]

I've touched up just about all of my sites this past year since getting back into webdesign; there are a couple that still need work or or out of date, but I'm either aware of it or have posted a note on the front page about it. For example, two of my Red vs Blue sites are completely out of date and partially inaccurate because I got retconned soon after I put them out -- I made note of that on the front pages to let visitors know that hey, everything's still readable, it's just not updated to the current season.

That said, it is more difficult to keep sites up to date when you have a lot of them. While I've at least made basic touchups to most of my sites this year, there are a couple I've avoided entirely because I know that if I go in and edit one thing, I won't be able to keep myself from editing everything -- and with how much work they need, that's a full revamp, not a little spring cleaning! So while it does bug me to leave some sites up in that state, I can't really do anything else until I have the time to dedicate to a revamp.

I do consider most of my sites static, though, especially if they're for subjects from finished or long-dead series and I have nothing new. Since I updated all of my sites when I changed domains and took care of the basic maintenance tasks, I rarely have to update anything on most sites. (I also use PHP to update the copyright date every year, I'm too lazy to do that myself.)

[Robin]

I have my ongoing projects page on my newsblog to remind me of sites that need updating and sites that need to be made. I generally juggle so many websites at a time that sometimes I get "website ADHD" and forget to actually, uh, upload things. xD

Otherwise, I have a sort-of schedule for regular updating:
- Active sites: Link cleanup at least once every 6 months, revamps as needed
- Static sites: Link cleanup at least every year, revamps as needed
- Main domain pages: Brief review at least every year, revamps as needed

As for long-term maintenance, I'm now trying to give each of my sites larger revamps when I can. (See: the huuuuuuge revamp to The Gamer's Repose in September.) I've currently got a few projects I've been putting off in favor of new *SHINY* sites, but I'll get around to 'em! :)

[Crystal]

Except for my writing style changing over the years there hasn't really been any maintenance I need to do. The only exception maybe is finding typos or grammar errors that I missed when I uploaded the site but other than that I can't think of much else I need to do.

[nyxmidnight]

Code: Select all

<?php echo date('Y'); ?>

will solve all your copyright dates woes on a php page :D

As for maintenance, I have to do some regularly at least on my fanlistings because of TFL's rule of updating every 2 months. Aside from that I have 3(!) separate maintenance lists including one on paper(!!!) that I should be doing, but my whims of site-working come and go, and unfortunately do not always coincide with my free time D: My three main goals right now are to finish Nyx's Lounge's huge revamp and update, finishing at least one shrine for Blast from the Past and revamp my ridiculous misc. fanarts and original art site.

[Camy]

I haven't been doing any and I really should. Just...lazy and college and too much games and lazy XD

[Robin]

Code: Select all

<?php echo date('Y'); ?>

will solve all your copyright dates woes on a php page :D

The coding awesomeness! I am dazzled!!

[nyxmidnight]

Whee! I know it's ridiculously simple by php standard, but the day I discovered that was magical.

That and includes.

[Todd]

Code: Select all

<?php echo date('Y'); ?>

will solve all your copyright dates woes on a php page :D

Omg, this is awesome! Thank you so much, Nyx!