Website outages are always stressful. But when the issue comes from your hosting provider deleting core files without warning, recovery becomes far more complicated. This is exactly what happened with the Southport FC website the day before a match.
The club’s site wasn’t hosted by us. Their third-party hosting provider had recently begun showing “resource overuse” messages, but no action was taken. Then, in the middle of the day, with no warning, the website simply stopped working.
What we found was alarming:
- Multiple core WordPress files had been deleted
- Key files like wp-config.php and other important files were reduced to 0 bytes
- There was no reliable backup. The hosting plan was so limited it couldn’t generate one
Our Recovery Approach
We acted quickly to prevent total data loss. The priority was preserving the club’s years of match reports, photos, and documents. Fortunately, we were able to retain the wp-content folder. This is where all uploads, plugins, and theme content lives.
We then:
- Reinstalled a clean version of WordPress
- Restored configuration files manually
- Verified database access and connection settings
- Resolved plugin issues one by one (some had also been partially deleted or corrupted)
- Brought the site back online in full
The entire recovery was completed within a couple of hours. Speed matters, especially when you’re restoring a site the day before a fixture.
Lessons from the Incident
This wasn’t a case of malware or a direct hack. The files weren’t modified. They were simply deleted or emptied by the hosting provider to bring disk usage under their limit. There were no alerts, no backups, and no support from the provider.
It highlights a harsh reality:
Low-cost hosting can cost you far more when something goes wrong.
Our Recommendation
If your website is critical to your business, or organisation, your hosting needs to reflect that. At Bollabo, we host websites with:
- Daily off-site backups
- Server monitoring
- Proper resource allocation
- Emergency recovery options
- Human support when things go wrong
If you’re worried about the reliability of your hosting or if something just doesn’t feel right, get in touch. You shouldn’t find out your host is the problem after your site disappears.