Something visibly broke
A layout collapsed after an update, the contact form stopped delivering, images vanished, or the whole site is showing an error. Usually a plugin, a theme or a server setting fell out of step with the rest.
We take over sites built by someone else: fix what is broken, clean malware, restore speed, and keep them updated, backed up and monitored afterwards.
Most sites in trouble were not neglected on purpose. The person who built them moved on, the logins went with them, and nothing was wrong enough to act on until it suddenly was.
A layout collapsed after an update, the contact form stopped delivering, images vanished, or the whole site is showing an error. Usually a plugin, a theme or a server setting fell out of step with the rest.
Redirects to somewhere else, pages you never wrote, spam appearing in search results, or a browser warning in front of your own domain. Almost always through a component left un-updated for a long time.
Years of pending updates, no backup anyone has tested, an unknown hosting account, and a login nobody can produce. Nothing is on fire — which is exactly why it stays like that until it is.
Two different jobs, bought for two different reasons. Rescue is a one-off piece of work with an end. Care is what stops you needing another rescue.
We find the actual cause rather than the symptom, then fix it: the plugin or theme conflict, the failed update, the broken form, the layout that stopped holding together. Quoted after we have looked, never before.
Removing injected code, unfamiliar admin accounts and modified core files, closing the route that was used, then getting warnings and blacklist entries lifted. Where a clean recovery is not possible we say so and rebuild from what is trustworthy.
Slow sites are usually slow for two or three findable reasons: unoptimised images, a stack of plugins doing overlapping work, no caching, or hosting the site has outgrown. We measure first, then fix in that order.
Core, theme and plugin updates applied on a schedule and checked afterwards, backups running off-site and restore-tested, and uptime watched — so a problem reaches us before it reaches your customers.
The half-hour jobs that otherwise wait months: a new page, a price, a staff change, a form field. Plus someone who already knows your setup when something does go wrong.
The first four come from a rescue; the last two are what an ongoing care arrangement adds. A rescue alone is legitimate — plenty of clients take it and stop there.
What is wrong, what caused it, what it will take, and what we would leave alone. If the honest answer is that the site is beyond economic repair, that is in the diagnosis too.
The fault repaired at its cause — conflicts resolved, updates completed safely, forms delivering, layouts holding on phone and desktop — with a full backup taken before anything was touched.
What was found, what was removed, how it most likely got in, and what has been closed. Plus the passwords and keys that had to be replaced, and confirmation that warnings have been lifted.
Load times on mobile and desktop recorded at the start and at the end, so the improvement is a figure rather than an impression — and so later slowdowns have a reference point.
Scheduled, stored away from the server, and proven by restoring one. An untested backup is not a backup — it is an assumption, and it fails at the only moment it matters.
Every account the site depends on — hosting, domain, CMS, email, DNS — listed and confirmed in your name, alongside the schedule of what gets updated, checked and reported, and how often.
A site nobody maintains is not stable — it is deteriorating quietly. These are the four things that change when that stops being true.
The site loads, the forms deliver, the warnings come down. Whatever the outage was costing in enquiries, credibility or search visibility stops accruing on the day it is fixed.
Most compromises use an old component with a widely published weakness. Staying current removes that category of risk. It does not make a site invulnerable, and we will never tell you it does.
With tested off-site backups, the worst case is restoring yesterday. Without them, the worst case is rebuilding a site from screenshots and whatever the search engines still hold.
Knowing where the domain is registered, who the host is and how to reach the CMS ends the dependence on whoever built it. That alone resolves a surprising share of the panic.
This is the Website Rescue & Care engagement specifically — not the general Novrix delivery process, which covers a whole project from discovery to launch.
Finding out what exists and who holds it — hosting, domain, CMS, DNS. Often the slowest part, and never skipped.
What is actually wrong and what caused it, written up with a scope and a price before any repair begins.
A full backup taken and a safe copy to work on, so the repair can never make the situation worse than it is.
Cleanup, fixes and speed work carried out and verified, then moved to the live site at a time that suits you.
Where you want it: updates, tested backups and monitoring on a schedule, with a report you can actually read.
That is the whole point of this service — almost every site we rescue was built by somebody else. We do not need the original developer’s cooperation and we do not need an explanation of what they did. What we do need is control of the hosting and the domain, and if you are not sure who holds those, helping you find out is part of the first step.
Send the address and whatever access you have, and we will get to a diagnosis quickly — a full outage is treated differently from a cosmetic fault. The realistic constraint is rarely us; it is how long it takes to reach an account nobody in the building has the password for. Start that hunt while you are writing to us.
No, and treat anyone who does as a warning sign. What we can do is remove what is on the site now, close the route that was used, replace the credentials that may have leaked, and keep components current so the widely-known weaknesses do not apply to you. That reduces risk substantially — it does not eliminate it, because nothing does. The other half of the answer is tested backups, so that if something does happen you are restoring rather than rebuilding.
Rescue is one-off work with an end: something is wrong, we diagnose it, quote it, fix it, and the engagement closes. Care is ongoing: updates, backups, monitoring and small changes on a schedule, so problems are caught early instead of discovered by a customer. Most clients arrive for a rescue. Whether they continue into care is their call, and taking the rescue and walking away is a perfectly normal outcome.
The diagnosis answers that, and it is written before you commit to repair work. Fixing usually wins: it is a fraction of the cost and keeps the content and search history you have already earned. Rebuilding becomes the honest recommendation when the site runs on components that are no longer maintained, or when repair would cost a meaningful share of a new build. We will tell you which one you are looking at even when it is the smaller job for us.
Most of what comes to us is WordPress, because most of the web is. We also take on other common platforms and plain hand-built sites. If yours is something we would not be able to support properly, we will say that at the diagnosis stage rather than learning it halfway through — and we would rather turn the work down than take it on badly.
It is common, and it is recoverable. Hosting and registrar can usually be traced from the domain itself, and account recovery can be pursued with the provider from the business that owns the name. It adds time rather than making the job impossible. By the end you will have a written inventory of every account the site depends on, in your name — which is often the most valuable part of the whole engagement.
No. The rescue stands on its own and the accounts are yours throughout, so you can take the site to another provider or manage it internally the day we finish. Care is offered because unmaintained sites are how most of these problems start, not because you would be unable to leave. If you have someone in-house who can keep it updated and test the backups, that is a fine answer and we will say so.
You do not need to know the cause, and you do not need the old developer. Tell us what you are seeing and what access you can find. The diagnosis comes back in writing — before any repair is quoted.