A monthly website health checklist

Questo contenuto è in inglese.

Most website problems are slow and quiet. A certificate expires on a Sunday, a link to a key page breaks after a rename, or an email record is changed during a tidy-up and invoices stop arriving. A short monthly check catches these before visitors or customers do. A monthly rhythm is frequent enough to catch most changes and infrequent enough to be realistic. This guide sets out a checklist that takes about an hour, explains why each item matters and points to the Valtrinity tool that covers each one. It works for a small business site, a blog or a portfolio.

Di Valtrinity. Aggiornato il 18 ottobre 2026.

1. Check the site is up

Start by confirming the homepage and two or three key pages load. Use the website status tool to check the address from outside your own network. A page that loads for you may still fail for visitors if a cache or a regional problem is involved. Note any slow responses, as well as outright failures.

• Check the homepage and key pages from outside your network.
• Note slow responses as well as failures.

2. Check the SSL certificate and domain expiry

Confirm the SSL certificate has at least a month before it expires, using the SSL checker. Then check the domain registration date. Expired domains and certificates are among the most damaging problems a site can have, and both are easy to prevent.

Worked example. If the SSL checker shows 40 days remaining and the domain expires in four months, the checklist entry is a pass, but you should still confirm the renewal settings. Alerts 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before expiry are available as part of the Unlimited plan.

• Certificate: at least a month remaining.
• Domain: note the renewal date and confirm auto renewal.

3. Check for broken links

Links break when pages are renamed, moved or deleted. A broken link on a key page sends visitors to an error. Run the broken link checker across the site, or at least across your main navigation and the pages that bring in the most visitors, and fix or redirect anything that returns an error.

• Fix links that return errors.
• Prioritise navigation and high-traffic pages.

4. Check redirects

Redirects are useful but can build up. A link that goes through two or three redirects is slower and can lose visitors before the final page loads. Check a sample of old addresses with the redirect checker, and make sure http goes to https and that the www and bare domain behave consistently.

• Test a sample of old addresses.
• Look for chains of more than one redirect.
• Confirm HTTP leads to HTTPS, and www is consistent.

5. Check page weight and images

Heavy pages are slow pages. Look at the largest images on the home page and the most visited articles. If a picture is far larger than the space it fills on screen, compress or resize it. A smaller file often makes a bigger difference to speed than any other single change.

• Compress or resize the largest images first.
• Remove images that do not add anything to the page.

6. Check security headers and sitemap

Run the security headers checker and note any header that has disappeared since last month. Then confirm the sitemap and robots.txt still load and point to the right addresses. Changes to a theme, plugin or server setting are the usual cause of problems here.

• Compare the headers with last month.
• Confirm the sitemap and robots.txt still load.

7. Check email records

Email records are easy to break and hard to notice. Confirm the MX records still point to your mail provider, and check the sending records. Use the email DNS checker and send a test message to an address you control. If a record has changed, find out why before you tidy it up.

• Confirm MX records point to your mail provider.
• Send and receive a test message.

Record the results and act on them

Write down each result in a simple table, with the date, the item, the outcome and any action. Fix anything that failed before the next check. If a problem keeps coming back, change the process that causes it, such as who is allowed to edit the site or how the sitemap is generated.

A full website health report can run many of these checks at once. The website health report on Valtrinity is part of the Unlimited plan, and the weekly report by email is available in the SEO pack.

• Record the date, item, outcome and action.
• Fix failures before the next check.
• Change the process if the same problem returns.

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