Understanding the Challenges of Managing a Migrated Website: A Comprehensive Guide for First-Time Site Owners
Embarking on your first journey of managing a transferred website is both exciting and daunting. Unlike working with static sites or simple CMS platforms like WordPress editors, handling a live, dynamically coded website requires a solid understanding of various technical aspects to ensure a smooth transition, ongoing maintenance, and future updates. Whether you are a developer stepping into this role for the first time or a designer expanding your skill set, being aware of key considerations can greatly improve your experience and site stability.
Understanding Your Hosting Environment
Since your website is hosted on a cPanel-based server, it’s essential to familiarize yourself with its limitations. With no root access, your control is confined to the user level, primarily managing files in the public_html directory and databases via cPanel tools. Knowing this helps you understand what changes you can implement directly and what might require support from your hosting provider.
Managing and Updating Site Files
You mentioned the desire to redesign and switch templates on an existing PHP-based system with custom code. Before making modifications:
- Backup First: Always create a complete backup of your site files and database. Most cPanel hosts provide tools for easy backups.
- Code Refactoring: Your initial goal should be to separate PHP logic from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This will make future updates and template changes more manageable.
- Avoid Direct Edits on Live Files: Use a staging environment to test changes before deploying them live to prevent site downtime.
Working with PHP and Custom CMS
Since your site uses a custom PHP CMS running on PHP 7.4 with somewhat spaghetti code, proceed with caution:
- Code Analysis: Take time to understand the existing code structure. This helps identify potential security issues and opportunities for optimization.
- Refactoring Plan: Develop a step-by-step approach to clean up the codebase gradually, improving maintainability without breaking functionality.
Security Considerations: SSL and Server Ports
- SSL Certificates: Ensuring your site uses HTTPS is crucial for security. Typically, your hosting provider offers free SSL certificates via Let’s Encrypt or similar services. Install and configure SSL through your hosting control panel.
- Server Ports: For standard website access, ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) are used. You typically do not need to configure ports unless your domain or server setup requires special handling.
