The Drawback: Many web site homeowners don’t assume twice about leaving previous or unused WordPress websites sitting on their cPanel accounts. Perhaps it’s a staging website from final 12 months, a consumer venture that by no means launched, or an archived model of your previous homepage.
However protecting these forgotten websites alive can severely compromise the safety, efficiency, and stability of your internet hosting surroundings. Right here’s why this can be a downside—and what you have to be doing as an alternative.
Why Unused WordPress Websites Are a Severe Drawback
Even when they’re not being visited, unused WordPress websites pose main dangers. Let’s break down precisely how they damage your internet hosting surroundings:
1. Safety Vulnerabilities
Unused websites are hardly ever up to date, making them prime targets for hackers. Outdated themes, plugins, or WordPress core recordsdata usually comprise recognized exploits. A single compromised website in your account can result in spam injections, phishing pages, malware distribution, and cross-contamination, finally impacting all websites on the identical internet hosting surroundings.
Hackers actively scan for these forgotten installations as a result of they’re low-hanging fruit—straightforward to use on account of recognized vulnerabilities. Even in case you assume nobody is visiting the positioning, it might probably nonetheless be silently compromised and used for phishing, spam, or malware distribution.
In brief, even with out visitors, an unused website can develop into the weakest hyperlink in your total internet hosting surroundings.
2. Useful resource Waste
Outdated WordPress installations can nonetheless devour precious server sources like CPU, RAM, and storage. Bots will scan these websites commonly, and scheduled duties (like WP cron) might proceed to run within the background.
Whereas this may occasionally not appear problematic for just one or two unused web sites, a problem can happen over time the longer the positioning stays publicly out there however not in energetic use, or when you’ve got a number of unused web sites.
In these circumstances, it will have an effect on the velocity and efficiency of your energetic web sites and will result in account throttling or suspension for exceeding useful resource limits.
3. Backup Bloat
GreenGeeks EcoSite and Reseller accounts embody computerized day by day backups. In the event you’ve bought a number of unused websites, these backups are inflated with pointless recordsdata and databases, losing storage and making restores slower and extra time-consuming.
In the event you require GreenGeeks to help with restoring backups, this will inadvertently delay our response occasions considerably.
4. Administration Confusion and Danger of Human Error
Having too many websites in a single account results in litter. It’s straightforward to overlook what every website does, which one is protected to delete, or worse, by accident edit or take away the incorrect website throughout upkeep or migration.
This turns into particularly harmful when a number of websites share comparable file names, plugins, or configurations, which is very frequent when a number of web sites are hosted inside the identical cPanel account.
The Resolution: Audit Your Installations
The most secure and smartest answer is easy: take away unused WordPress web sites totally. Right here’s how and why you need to take motion at this time:
Begin through the use of instruments like Softaculous to evaluation and handle your web site installations. Verify when every one was final up to date and whether or not it’s nonetheless serving a objective.
1. Delete What’s No Longer Wanted
If a website hasn’t been up to date in months and serves no useful or strategic worth, take away it. Meaning deleting the WordPress recordsdata, related database, and any linked subdomain or addon area. Don’t simply disguise the positioning — do away with it totally.
A leaner cPanel account is less complicated to handle, safer, and runs sooner. With fewer websites to replace and monitor, you scale back your publicity to threats and unencumber system sources for what actually issues.
2. Protect Content material the Proper Method
In the event you’re solely protecting the positioning for its content material, use the WordPress export software or save key pages/posts manually. You don’t want a full set up sitting stay simply to maintain data or backups.
You’ll be able to even convert the positioning right into a static HTML model in case you want a reference however don’t need the dangers of a stay set up. By preserving what issues and deleting the remaining, you scale back your assault floor whereas protecting your archives intact.
Moreover, arrange a coverage for a way lengthy staging or momentary websites are allowed to stay in your account. Periodically audit all energetic websites and take motion earlier than points come up.
3. Audit All Remaining Passwords
After getting ensured all unused web sites have been eliminated out of your account, take the time to reset all passwords for every remaining web site.
This consists of WordPress admin accounts, database customers, and FTP or cPanel credentials. It’s a easy precaution that helps guarantee any compromise from a beforehand uncared for website doesn’t carry over to your energetic surroundings.
Set a coverage to periodically audit all energetic websites and passwords, and routinely reset all passwords. You can even add 2-Issue Authentication to your GreenGeeks Account login for added safety.
4. Take into account Reseller Internet hosting
In the event you nonetheless intend to handle a number of web sites after eradicating any unused web sites, particularly for shoppers or totally different initiatives, contemplate upgrading to a GreenGeeks Reseller internet hosting plan.
Reseller internet hosting lets you assign every web site its personal cPanel account, which tremendously improves safety isolation. On this surroundings, one compromised website received’t have an effect on the others ought to an exploit happen. It additionally makes it simpler to trace useful resource utilization per website, handle backups individually, and apply personalized settings.
This segmentation offers higher efficiency, streamlined group, and added peace of thoughts. For rising portfolios and clientele, it’s a sensible and scalable answer.
Remaining Ideas
Leaving previous WordPress websites on-line is like leaving a window open in your home when you’re on trip. It’s pointless, dangerous, and invitations bother.
There isn’t any sensible profit to leaving a website sitting unused in your internet hosting account. Not like archived content material or static HTML recordsdata, a WordPress set up is dynamic and carries ongoing threat even when dormant. If it’s not serving customers, not being up to date, and never a part of your small business roadmap, it needs to be gone. Don’t let a web site you’re now not utilizing have an effect on an energetic web site that’s essential.
Ought to your GreenGeeks internet hosting account be compromised, GreenGeeks might require you to take away any outdated web sites out of your account earlier than restoring entry to forestall further compromises.
In the event you require help with eradicating any probably unused web sites, please attain out to our Help Group, and we will gladly help you with auditing your account for any unused WordPress web sites you could have.
Take the time to wash up or improve your internet hosting account — your stay web sites and clients will thanks for it.
