Summary
Galaxy HR had their site built 3 years ago and never put it on maintenance. Recently they asked for professional domain-based emails. We requested their domain & hosting logins and desired email names. When we checked, their current hosting didn’t have the domain attached, so we assigned the domain and created the emails.
To make email deliver, we updated MX records—email started working, but the website broke. Root cause: the live website was actually hosted on a different hosting account that had expired 2 years earlier. No backups were available from that provider. Result: Galaxy HR had to rebuild a new website at $1,700 + 13%.
What Went Wrong (Root Causes)
- Unknown infrastructure: No up-to-date record of where the website actually lived (DNS ≠ Hosting).
- Expired hosting (silent): The old hosting serving the live site had expired 2 years ago; no one noticed because DNS hadn’t been reviewed and traffic was cached/intermittent.
- No backups: The former host had no retrievable backups.
- DNS changes without mapping: MX changes exposed that A/CNAME pointed to a host nobody maintained.
- No maintenance policy: No renewal monitoring, no DNS documentation, no SLA.
Business Impact
- Website outage: Site errors after MX changes revealed the real (expired) host.
- Lost time & credibility: Prospects saw errors while emails were being fixed.
- Rebuild cost: New website required at $1,700 + 13% (design, dev, content setup).
- Operational friction: Team stuck between email reliability and site downtime.
- Future risk surfaced: Lack of ownership records = repeated risk for domains, SSL, DNS.
Maintenance Is Equally Essential
As vital as your website and brand appearance are to your business, maintenance is equally essential. DNS, hosting, SSL, backups—one loose thread can unravel everything.
How Maintenance Would Have Prevented This
- Asset inventory: Central register of domain, DNS, hosting, email, CDN with current logins.
- Renewal & uptime watch: Autorenew + 24/7 monitoring would have flagged the expired host immediately.
- Backups with retention: Daily/twice-daily off-site backups (30–60 days) for quick restore.
- DNS change protocol: Staging tests, short TTLs, and impact checks before MX/A record edits.
- Ownership hygiene: Verified contacts, secondary emails, and documented access paths.
- SLA response: Standard ≤24h | Premium same-day 4–8h to contain damage fast.
Action Checklist (Today)
- Build a source-of-truth sheet (domain registrar, DNS host, web host, email, CDN, SSL).
- Turn autorenew ON everywhere; verify billing emails and add a backup contact.
- Enable daily off-site backups; run a test restore monthly.
- Add 24/7 uptime & SSL monitoring (alerts to phone + email).
- Adopt a DNS change SOP: lower TTL, schedule window, validate A/AAAA/CNAME/MX, post-change tests.
- Enroll in Standard (annual) or Premium (monthly) maintenance for ongoing governance.
Pricing note:
- Standard: $1,800/year + $200 one-time setup
- Premium: $799/month + $200 one-time setup
Setup includes full audit (DNS/hosting/SSL), baseline backup, security hardening, and staging configuration.
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