Website maintenance service in Japan – keep your site safe, working and current

What website maintenance protects

Maintenance has three jobs: keep the site online, keep it secure, and make sure it can be restored fast when something goes wrong. Because the site looks the same from the outside, it is easy to put off. The result is often a contact form that silently stopped working for weeks, or pages that redirect visitors to spam.

A CMS like WordPress is built from a core, a theme and plugins, and all of them receive regular updates. Skipping updates leaves known weaknesses open; updating without checking can break the layout. Good maintenance is the monthly routine of updating, checking and keeping a way back.

• Uptime: the site and its forms work every day
• Security: the CMS, plugins and SSL are current and logins are protected
• Recovery: a recent backup exists and there is a known way to restore it

A quick first check: look for pending updates in your admin panel and note when your SSL certificate expires.

Checklist: what a maintenance contract should cover

Two "monthly maintenance" plans can be very different – one may cover hosting only, another updates and small fixes as well. Go through a contract or quote line by line with this list.

• Backups: how often, how long they are kept, and whether they are stored off the server
• CMS and plugin updates: who runs them, when, and whether pages are checked afterwards
• Uptime monitoring: automatic alerts when the site goes down
• Security: login protection, removal of unused plugins, checks for tampering
• SSL and domain renewals: so the site never goes offline over a missed expiry date
• Small fixes: text and image swaps, broken links – and how much is included
• Incident handling: how you report a problem, response time, whether recovery is included
• Monthly report: what was done and a short traffic summary

Regular content work – news posts, new pages – is usually billed separately from maintenance. If you want that handled as well, see our website update service.

Five things to confirm before you sign

A full task list still fails you if the terms leave you stuck when it matters. Get these five points in writing or by message first.

• Ownership: the domain, hosting, GA4 and Search Console are registered in your name
• Logins: you keep a copy of the admin and hosting credentials
• Extra work: how tasks outside the plan are priced
• Exit terms: minimum period, and whether you receive your files and backups when you leave
• Contact: who you reach, through which channel, and how quickly

Typically, maintenance in Japan ranges from a few thousand yen to several tens of thousands of yen a month depending on scope, so compare what is included along with the price. For the full yearly picture including hosting and domain fees, see website running costs.

Moving maintenance of a site another agency built

Agencies close, contacts change, or the current plan simply does not feel safe. You can move maintenance to a new provider without rebuilding the site. The handover usually goes like this:

• Collect access: domain, hosting and admin panel logins
• Audit: CMS and plugin versions, existing backups, SSL expiry
• Full backup: files and database saved before any change
• Update and clean up: bring plugins up to date and remove unused ones
• Start the routine: set up monitoring and scheduled backups, then monthly checks

Lost logins are rarely a dead end: if the domain and hosting are in your name, access can usually be reset. For WordPress-specific checks, read WordPress maintenance, and for protection against hacks see WordPress security.

How UNANOBO handles maintenance: a monthly routine and a free demo

UNANOBO maintenance is a monthly routine: backup checks, CMS and plugin updates with a visual check afterwards, uptime monitoring, SSL and domain renewal tracking, and small fixes. You get a short report by message each month, so you always know what was done.

We start with a free demo built from your current site. After an initial check, you see a version with the issues we found already tidied up, on your computer and phone. Then you receive a proposed maintenance scope and estimate, and decide only once it makes sense to you. The founder handles every project personally, so you keep one contact throughout, by message in Japanese or English. Your domain and analytics stay in your name.