Site down? Emergency website support that answers.

What counts as a website emergency

If your site is losing money or reputation right now, it is an emergency. Everything else is a normal support request that can wait for business hours. Our emergency website support in the UK is specifically for the "right now" category, and the response window is measured in hours not days.

Things that count as emergencies:

• The site is completely down (returning 5xx errors, timing out, or showing the hosting provider's suspension page)
• The checkout or booking flow is broken and customers cannot complete purchases
• Contact forms are silently failing and leads are being lost
• The site has been hacked or is showing spam pages, malware warnings, or unauthorised content
• Google Search Console has flagged the site as containing malware or deceptive content
• Hosting has suspended the account and the site is showing a takedown page
• SSL certificate has expired and browsers are warning visitors "this site is not secure"
• Admin login is locked out and you cannot access WordPress or the CMS
• A plugin update has broken layouts across the whole site
• Database has become corrupted or the site is returning "Error establishing a database connection"

Things that do not count as emergencies (and can wait for business hours): content edits, new page additions, small design tweaks, "the site feels slow" (real but not urgent), general questions, or planning conversations. We still handle all of those, just not on an emergency footing.

Response time by tier

Emergency response speed depends on your care plan tier. All three tiers include emergency response, but the SLA differs:

Non-clients (one-off engagement): typically same day if the WhatsApp lands during UK business hours, next business day if out-of-hours. If you have not signed up for a care plan and the site is down right now, message us on WhatsApp and we will diagnose and quote within the hour if we are around.

Care Pro's 4-hour emergency SLA includes weekends and evenings. It is our fastest contractual commitment, and it costs more per month because it requires someone on call. See the full website care plans page for tier detail.

Common site emergencies we handle

The list of things that can go wrong with a website is long, but around 80% of emergencies fall into these six categories. Each has a fairly predictable response.

The site is completely down

Diagnosis path: check hosting provider status page, check DNS resolution, check origin server response, check for suspension emails from the hosting company. Most common causes: hosting outage (nothing we can do beyond wait), suspended account (we escalate with hosting), expired domain (renew immediately), corrupted database (restore from backup), or catastrophic plugin conflict (deactivate all plugins via SFTP, reactivate one by one).

Checkout or booking flow is broken

Diagnosis: reproduce the issue as a customer would, capture the exact error, check payment provider status pages, check recent plugin/theme updates that touched the checkout code path. Fix: usually rolling back the last update, sometimes patching a specific plugin conflict, sometimes escalating with the payment gateway if it is their outage. Priority is always to get the checkout working before investigating root cause.

Site hacked or showing spam pages

Handled via our specific hacked website repair service: contain the infection by taking the site offline behind a maintenance page, identify all malicious files by comparing against a clean install and known malware signatures, remove the malicious code, identify and patch the entry point (usually an outdated plugin, weak admin password, or compromised FTP credentials), force-reset all admin passwords, rotate SSH and database credentials, submit a Google Search Console reconsideration request if the site was blacklisted, and monitor for 30 days for reinfection attempts.

Contact forms silently failing

The worst emergency because you often do not know it has happened. Diagnosis: test the form as a visitor, check the server mail log, check spam folders, check the plugin sending method (SMTP vs PHP mail), check DNS SPF/DKIM records. Fix: usually reconfiguring the SMTP provider or switching from the default PHP mail() function to a proper SMTP service. Once fixed, we usually recommend adding form-submission logging so you know if it fails again.

SSL certificate expired

Fix is fast: renew the certificate (30 minutes on most hosts), verify the auto-renewal cron is enabled (so it does not happen again), and check no hardcoded HTTP links exist in the site. Site returns to normal within an hour. Google will re-verify HTTPS within 24 hours. Any browser warnings visitors saw stop appearing immediately.

Admin login locked out

Fix depends on why. Forgotten password: reset via SFTP + database update. Failed-login rate limit triggered: whitelist your IP in the security plugin. Two-factor authentication broken: disable it via database update, then re-set up. Compromised admin account: create a new admin via database, delete the compromised one, rotate all passwords, run a malware scan. Usually resolved within an hour once we have SFTP access to the site.

How the process works

Simple. Not much bureaucracy when the site is down.

• You message us on WhatsApp (fastest) or email hello@lynkupdigital.com. Include the site URL, what happened, and roughly when it started.
• We reply within your SLA window and start diagnosing immediately. For hosting or SSL issues we usually need admin/SFTP access, which you provide via the initial reply.
• Diagnose and quote (for non-clients). Care plan clients skip this step because the work is included in the plan. Non-clients get a flat quote within the hour, usually £150 to £800 depending on scope.
• Fix and verify. The site goes back up. We test every affected flow, not just the one you reported.
• Follow-up. Report of what happened, what caused it, what we did, and what to do to prevent recurrence. Usually recommendations include moving to Care Plus or Care Pro if you are not already on one.

What it costs

For care plan clients: emergency response is included in the monthly fee. Care Pro at £199/mo gets the 4-hour SLA. Care Plus at £109/mo gets 24 hours. Care gets 2 business days. Full tier breakdown on the website care plans page.

For non-clients (one-off engagements): quoted flat once we have diagnosed the issue. Typical ranges: simple restore-from-backup starts around £150. Broken checkout or contact form fix around £250. Hacked-site cleanup with 30-day monitoring around £600 to £800 depending on severity. Full quote is fixed before work begins so there is no meter running.

Better than an emergency: a care plan

Emergencies are expensive and stressful. Care plans are cheap and predictable. Every care plan tier includes weekly (Care) or daily (Care Plus and Care Pro) backups, so restoring from backup after an incident takes 30 minutes not two days. Every tier includes plugin updates tested in staging before production, so the classic "plugin update broke the site" emergency is prevented rather than reacted to. Every tier includes security scans that catch malware or unauthorised changes before Google flags the site.

If your site earns money, a care plan is the cheapest insurance you can buy. Care Plus at £109/mo covers most small business sites. Care Pro at £199/mo is right for revenue-critical sites where downtime costs more than the plan does. Both include the emergency response you would otherwise pay for per-incident, plus prevention of the emergencies that would have happened without maintenance.

Common questions

How fast do you actually respond to emergencies?

Care Pro: 4-hour SLA, weekends and out-of-hours included. Care Plus: 24 hours. Care: 2 business days. Non-clients: usually same day if the WhatsApp lands during UK business hours.

Can you help if I am not already a client?

Yes. One-off emergency engagements available regardless of care plan status. Quoted flat once diagnosed, work starts immediately. Most clients move onto Care Plus or Care Pro after to prevent recurrence.

What if my site has been hacked?

Contain, remove malicious code, patch entry point, submit Google reconsideration if blacklisted, monitor 30 days. Handled as emergency engagement or included in Care Pro for existing clients.

How much does emergency website support cost?

One-off engagements: £150 for simple restore-from-backup up to £800 for full hack cleanup with monitoring. Care Pro clients: emergency response included in monthly fee. Full quote fixed before work begins.

What counts as an emergency vs a normal support request?

Emergency: site down, checkout broken, hosting suspended, malware, forms failing, admin locked out, SSL expired. Normal: content edits, adding pages, small tweaks. Dividing line: is the site losing money or reputation right now.