Good question, you’ve just paid out for your all singing and dancing website and here I am advising you to get a new one in 3 years?

Not quite, it’s all down to how your website was built and in what language.

You may often be told to update your website for search engine purposes which is also true but to refresh design is not only for looks. The core reason boils down to our beloved hackers. As technology moves with the times so do the hackers. If your site was built over 3 years ago then it will also be vulnerable to hackers, they seek sites that have old code associated and therefore able to wreak havoc on your website and in some cases take over! The danger lies in e-commerce websites, hackers are able to take card details over encrypted emails even without the knowledge of the website owner or the customer.

With banks ever tightening their belts and putting the foot down on online fraud, if your computer of which the transaction has taken place, does not have any form of anti-virus then the banks are legally entitled to decline repayment. So too if the website owner has not taken adequate steps to ensure their site is hack proof.

In some cases such as Drupal, there are measures in place that prevent you from having to re-build your website and thus spend thousands of pounds on new site, Drupal cleverly have updates which, when configured to the site, protect and update the website code without the need of re-building!

So if you are happy with your design and your website is exactly as you want it then it’s certainly worth while putting in the initial investment to see a greater return. No need to budget every 3 years for a new website, just update and move on.

Your search engine ranking can also be drastically affected with a new website. All the time and effort taken to get your website to where your customers can find you can all be in vain. Do the research and make sure your web company know how to deal with website vulnerabilities ask the questions it’s worth the effort.