What actually breaks on Irish small-business sites
Across the sites we run and the ones we examine, the failure list is boringly consistent: updates that were never applied until one clashed, browser padlocks (SSL certificates) that ran out silently, contact forms that stopped delivering with no error, hosting moves that dropped a domain record, and WordPress installs running versions years out of date.
Almost none of it is exotic. All of it is preventable, which is the uncomfortable part: a repair bill is usually the invoice for watching that did not exist.
If you are deciding whether to repair or replace the site, use the repair or redesign checklist to separate individual faults from a change in business needs.
Repair versus upkeep
Repair is reactive: something is visibly broken, a specialist fixes it, you pay once. Upkeep is the reason repair never becomes urgent: updates on schedule, backups tested by restoring them, forms test-messaged by a machine, the padlock renewed before it runs out. If you are choosing between them, you are really choosing between paying for prevention monthly or paying for emergencies at emergency rates.
What a proper repair includes
- Diagnosis with evidence: what broke, why, and proof of the fix. Not "it should be grand now".
- A restore-tested backup taken before anything is touched.
- The cause fixed, not just the symptom: an outdated add-on gets an update policy, not just an update.
- A written note of what was done, so the next person (including future you) is not starting blind.