Keep your website running smoothly with the right people in the right roles

This article is intended for website owners and web developers who work with our hosting services.

Keeping a website running smoothly involves having the right people on hand to help with the right tasks at the right time. It’s a team effort. Your web hosting provider (like Maxer) has a clear set of responsibilities, and your own web team — whether that’s CMS users, site managers, or developers — has theirs. When a technical issue comes up, our support team will always help with troubleshooting and guide you toward whoever is best placed to resolve it.

This guide explains what you can expect from our hosting support and what typically falls under your developer or site manager. The aim is to set expectations clearly, avoid misunderstandings, and make sure every issue is handled by the right person as efficiently as possible.

Why This Matters

The right person can complete a task quickly, thoroughly, and in a way that prevents the same issue from returning. In practice, though, we’ve seen many situations over the years where a job meant for a developer ends up with someone who doesn’t have that background. Sometimes it’s a person trying to adjust code without any programming experience, or a well-meaning family member doing their best to troubleshoot something complex.

There’s absolutely no offence meant to anyone who’s trying to help — but we have a responsibility to be honest about what’s needed. If it’s clear that a task requires a different level of expertise, we’ll gently point that out and recommend involving someone with the right skill set.

Getting the right person involved early helps avoid:

• Issues taking much longer to resolve

• Security problems going unaddressed

• Problems reappearing because the underlying cause wasn’t fixed

• Requests being sent to us that fall outside the scope of hosting support

With this in mind, our support team will carry out the initial troubleshooting, share our findings with you, and advise on the level of expertise needed to resolve the issue properly.

Skill Levels: Who Should Handle What?

Most website issues that involve technical investigation, debugging, security reviews, or changes to website code need to be handled by skill levels 4–6. These roles typically require advanced or expert-level knowledge, often supported by formal training, qualifications, or certifications.

What We Support (Hosting Responsibilities)

We fully support the hosting platform and server environment. This includes:

• Server uptime and availability

• cPanel functionality

• Email infrastructure and routing (when the server is involved)

• DNS hosting and record configuration

• SSL certificates

• PHP versions, modules, and general configuration

• Database server availability (MySQL/MariaDB)

• Backups (system-level backups)

• Server-side security tools (firewalls, malware scanners, MailScanner)

• Checking logs to determine whether an issue is server-related

If the problem originates on the server, it is our responsibility to fix it.

What Your Developer Must Handle (Website Responsibilities)

The following tasks always require a developer (Level 4–6) and are not part of hosting support:

Website Performance & Resource Usage

• Slow website caused by plugins, themes, scripts, or queries

• High CPU/RAM/I/O caused by poorly optimised code

• Missing or incorrect caching configuration

• WordPress cron and background task issues

Website Errors & Functionality

• Contact forms not sending emails (when the site never hands the email to the server)

• PHP errors, fatal errors, 500 errors

• Broken layouts or missing content

• WooCommerce/checkout problems

• Plugin/theme conflicts

• Debugging JavaScript, CSS, PHP, or templates

• Fixing or updating custom code

• Database optimisation or repair

Application-Level Tasks

• Custom integrations and API connections

• Payment gateway issues

• Staging, development, deployment workflows

• CMS migrations or rebuilds

Who Handles Security Issues (Malware, Vulnerabilities, Hardening)?

Security inside the website itself must be handled by a qualified Back-End or Full-Stack developer. Hosting providers secure the server environment, not the website’s codebase.

What We Handle (Server-Side Security)

We provide:

• Malware scans (ImunifyAV, ClamAV, etc.)

• Quarantining infected files to protect the server

• Showing infected paths

• Restoring available backups

• Checking logs to confirm whether the compromise came from the server

• Basic advice on next steps

These tools help detect issues, but do not clean or secure the website’s code.

What Your Developer Must Handle (Website Security)

A Level 5–6 developer must handle:

• Cleaning infected files and removing malicious code

• Removing malware injected into the database

• Identifying how the compromise happened

• Fixing insecure or vulnerable plugins, themes, or custom code

• Updating outdated software

• Securing CMS admin panels and user accounts

• Proper hardening (security plugins, headers, access restrictions, etc.)

• Preventing reinfection

Malware cleanup and security hardening require coding knowledge and security expertise.

Summary of Security Responsibilities

• Hosting provider: Detect malware, isolate threats, protect the server.

• Developer: Clean the site, fix vulnerabilities, secure the site/application.

Best-Effort Assistance

We sometimes help with tasks that technically belong to a developer. This assistance is:

• Limited

• Courtesy-based

• Not part of the hosting plan

• Provided without responsibility for the website code

If deeper investigation or code-level work is required, we will refer you to your developer.

Summary

Hosting provider responsibilities:
Server, cPanel, DNS, email infrastructure, malware scanning, backups, environment stability.

Developer responsibilities:
Website code, themes, plugins, security, malware cleanup, performance, functionality, debugging, integrations.

We are always here to help with hosting-related issues.
For anything related to the website’s codebase, performance, or security management, a qualified developer is required.

If you are unsure which side an issue belongs to, feel free to open a ticket — we will happily point you in the right direction.

Updated by SP on 13/11/2025