Web Services Don't Need your Permission to Change ... or Disappear - Montana Webmaster

Web Services Don’t Need your Permission to Change … or Disappear

When a Plugin Mysteriously Stops Working

… it may no longer exist

Many years ago, a client in the travel industry had a problem with the little weather app on their website. It just stopped working. The weather app was a WordPress plugin tied to Google Weather. Google had discontinued their weather web service, so the app stopped working.

… or it may have changed

In another situation, I installed the WP Store Locator on a site. The plugin has been working fine on two original sites, but it is unable to generate maps on the new install. Today, I found out that there is a problem with another new install. It was strange that there would be a problem on some sites and not on others. So, I wrote a question in the plugin forum on WordPress.org. It turns out that the plugin writer had already written a page about the problem.

Apparently, Google switched the management of their map API function into a new system that requires all API users to have both API keys and a Google billing account. Even though their pricing currently gives small websites free use of the Google Map API, they still require billing information to be on record.

… or you receive a 30 day notice

In separate circumstances, I have had a student and a client receive a 30-day notice that their website hosting company was closing their doors. In both cases, the websites were on a service where they could not just download a copy to upload to another host. They had 30 days to redesign and build a website.

How to Prepare for the Loss of your Web Hosting Company

  1. Make sure that ALL images on your website have names that tell what the image is.
  2. Make sure that ALL images on your website are organized into folders on your own system where you can get to them easily.
  3. Have an inventory of ALL the pages on your website.

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