01 / Emergency help
What our emergency support covers
Hacked website
Strange links, redirects to dubious sites, spam sent from your server or Google's “This site may be hacked” warning.
Website down
Error 500 or 503, “Error establishing a database connection”, a blank white page or time-outs.
Broken after an update
“There has been a critical error on this website” after a plugin, theme, WordPress or PHP update.
Expired domain
A parking page instead of your website and bouncing emails. Every day counts here.
Lost access
Admin password gone, two-factor device lost, agency unreachable or the host has suspended the account.
Shop not selling
Checkout hangs, payments fail or order confirmations no longer arrive.
02 / Emergency help
The first few minutes: what you can do yourself
Before you delete or reinstall anything, these steps help. They keep evidence intact and stop the damage from spreading:
- Delete nothing: not even suspicious files. They show us how an attacker got in.
- Record the error: take a screenshot, note the time and what happened just before, such as an update or a change.
- Check it is not just you: open the site on your phone over mobile data rather than Wi-Fi.
- Check your inbox: look for emails from your host or registrar, including in spam, about an unpaid invoice or an expiring domain. WordPress also emails a recovery mode link to the admin address after a critical error.
- Do not restore an old backup blindly: after a hack, the backdoor is often already in older backups.
- Change passwords: if you suspect a hack, reset hosting, CMS, SFTP and email passwords from a clean device.
03 / Emergency help
Common emergencies and what usually causes them
| What you see | Common cause | What we check first |
|---|---|---|
| “There has been a critical error on this website.” | A plugin or theme clashes with a new PHP or WordPress version | The error log, then disable the culprit precisely |
| “Error establishing a database connection” | Database server trouble, changed credentials, corrupted database | Host status, configuration, table repair |
| Error 500 or a white page | Broken .htaccess, memory limit, damaged file | Server error log and recently changed files |
| Parking page instead of your site | Domain expired or not renewed | Status at the registrar and the renewal deadline |
| Google's “This site may be hacked” warning | Malware, spam pages or redirects | Security issues in Search Console, files and database |
| Emails bounce or land in spam | Changed DNS, missing SPF or DKIM, server on a blocklist | MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, blocklists |
04 / Emergency help
How emergency help works
- 01
- 02
First assessment
We look at the site from outside and tell you which logins we need, usually hosting and CMS.
- 03
Fixed price before we start
You get a fixed price for the repair. We only begin once you agree.
- 04
Repair
We back up the current state, find the cause and fix it, rather than papering over the symptom.
- 05
Report and next step
You learn what happened and how to prevent it. For a WordPress site we then recommend moving to a hand-coded website, because we do not run WordPress sites long-term.
05 / Emergency help
Expired domain: act fast
When a domain expires, website and email disappear at the same time. Many domain extensions have a grace period afterwards in which only the previous owner can renew, sometimes with a redemption fee. Once that period ends, anyone can register the domain.
Contact your registrar or us straight away. If the domain was registered through your former agency, our website takeover page explains how to get it into your own name.
06 / Emergency help
A fixed price, not an open-ended timesheet
In an emergency you should not have to worry about an open-ended bill as well. That is why we agree a fixed price before we start. On the market, fixed-price clean-ups of a hacked WordPress site commonly cost around €250 to €350; simple errors after an update are often quicker to solve.
The best emergency support is the kind you never need. Most outages we see come down to missed updates, abandoned plugins and missing backups.
07 / Emergency help
After the rescue: why we do not look after WordPress long-term
We do not use WordPress ourselves. We write our websites by hand in our own code and build shops on Shopify. With a WordPress site, our part is the rescue: it is back online, the data is safe and the hole is closed. We do not offer ongoing WordPress maintenance, plugin updates or WordPress care contracts.
Instead, we recommend the step to your own code: a hand-coded website with no plugins and no page builder, a far smaller attack surface and no weekly round of updates. Content, URLs and Google rankings come with you, as described under website migration and web development. Sites and Shopify stores built that way can then go into our website care.
FAQ
Common questions
01How quickly can you help?
Emergencies come before all other work. The fastest way to reach us is WhatsApp or phone. We tell you how long the repair will take after the first assessment, together with the fixed price.
02How much does emergency website support cost?
You get a fixed price before we start. On the market, fixed-price repairs of a hacked WordPress site commonly cost around €250 to €350; simpler problems often cost less.
03Can you help if you did not build our website?
Yes. Most emergencies involve sites built by someone else, on WordPress, a site builder or custom code. We just need access to hosting and the CMS.
04Will you maintain our WordPress site after the repair?
No. We get it running again, secure the data and give you a report. We do not run WordPress sites long-term. If you want, you get a fixed quote for moving to a hand-coded website, or to Shopify for a shop.
05My WordPress site shows a critical error after an update. What should I do?
Delete nothing and do not restore an old backup blindly. Check whether WordPress has emailed a recovery mode link to the admin address, or get in touch with us.
06Will I get my content back after a hack?
Usually, yes. Content lives in the database and can normally be cleaned. What matters is that nothing is deleted before we have analysed it.