I maintain three websites. My own. One for a friend. And one for the company that my husband and I own. It was that company one that was and still is driving me crazy.
After many hard drive crashes and many years, it has become so convoluted it’s unmanageable. I don’t know why but whole folders replicate themselves. Instead of having two templates, I have three copies of those two templates in various hidey holes on the site.
During the breakdown of the site, which you can see in this picture, I discovered spam has been deposited in two folders. Hundreds of spam from places like Abercrombie Fitch and Naked Women for You.
What you see in that picture took me hours. I call it the tree layout of the site.
Now I think my only choice is to recreate the entire site, somehow delete everything that’s online and put up the new version. Then figure out how to stop spam. It’ll take me days if not weeks to do that. In the meantime, the site has glitches that I can’t correct. Grrr.
I’m seriously going to look into taking Dreamweaver classes. I taught myself Dreamweaver. Clearly, I had a crappy teacher.
Oh you poor thing. That does NOT sound like fun :(
ReplyDeleteIf you're able to maintain all of those sites you clearly did not have a crappy teacher. How infuriating though! I hate wasting time on such things, especially Sunday time, my favourite day of the week!
ReplyDeleteAargh! You have my sympathy. Earlier this year I deleted my website and have since been painstakingly reuploading all 500+ pages using WordPress and redirecting the old html URLs to the new php ones. N.o.t F.u.n
ReplyDeleteElle
HearWriteNow & Blood-Red Pencil
It is so frustrating when that happens! You're correct in deciding that the only real option you have is to put up a new version, despite the amount of time it will take. So sorry!
ReplyDeleteYou build websites too! I have enough trouble with computer maintenance. After I saw how much time a friend spent on their website I opted for a professional. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI FEEL ya, GF! And the emotion in this 'prosetic' post was vivid. Nicely done, lol.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain...
ReplyDeleteHelen,
ReplyDeleteHow frustrating! I gave up Dreamweaver and use WordPress almost exclusively. With all the available plugins, it can do just about anything. In fact, I maintain about 28 Web sites on WordPress, including my church's Web site with about 100 pages.
Lillie Ammann
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye
One of my physics professors in the university used to say: "With computers a lot of time is lost".
ReplyDeleteWill you delete the Naked Women for You stuff when you recreate the site?
Cold As Heaven
Helen, You're amazing. But I'm agreeing that you may have to start from scratch.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain and it is pain.
At least you can fake your way through Dreamweaver - I can't even do that.
ReplyDeleteHearRightNow, I'd love to hear how you deleted the site. I'm not sure how to do that.
ReplyDeleteSimon, I kept telling my friend that I was not a professional, but she talked me into doing hers. Luckily, it was a simple site.
Lillie, I have absolutely no experience with WordPress. Dreamweaver is meant for professional website people, I think. Probably not where I should be.
Cold As Heaven, if it is possible to delete it, I will definitely do so.
Thank you everyone for your sympathy and support. Despite the 31 page print out of stuff, it's not that complicated of a site. At least, it shouldn't be. Of course, now it is because of all the glitches.
Again. You amaze me. Yet, regarding Dreamweaver, don't blame the teacher - blame those horrid spam generators. Miscreants, troublemakers, and demons who should be driven back to whatever murky depths they crawled from. There should be legal recourse, because they create a lot of work, costing time, money, and general peace of mind.
ReplyDeleteWhew. Let me stop here, I don't know what happened but suspect your blog triggered my aggravations fueled by what obviously is not a 2nd cup of 1/2 caf & 1/2 DEcaf.
I'll go now.
Jennifer (Madame) Perry
My condolences, Helen. I'm seasrching for a book titled, Web Pages for Dummies. :)
ReplyDeleteJennifer - keep on talking, girl. I'm right behind you echoing your frustration!
ReplyDeleteJean, I keep hearing that Wordpress is good.
Karen, I look at the pages I printed out with now cover 2/3's of my 8 foot wide bulletin board and I don't think it'll be any time soon.
Yuck! You have my sympathies...
ReplyDeleteLOL! They say in the legal world only a fool represents himself. I have taken that personally and hire professionals, like editors and instructors for software. Hope you get that problem solved quickly and cheaply.
ReplyDeleteStephen Tremp
There is a special place in Hell for spammers. You have my sympathy. If you decide to start over I hope you find a relatively painless way to migrate your content from old to new.
ReplyDelete~jon
I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I wouldn't have the faintest idea on where or how to look for these types of files. Ignorance is bliss? Or a ticking bomb? I suspect the latter...
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the mentality of spammers. I had my site and blog wiped out once by a spammer who left a nasty little message in place of my website. I hope you're able to get it all straightened out soon!
ReplyDeleteOh that's a real downer, Helen. Have you looked into having someone make the site for you? My web guru is pretty good for setting things up.
ReplyDeleteHow horrible!
ReplyDeleteSpammers are the worst. And how much do they actually sell for what they destroy?
If you can teach yourself Dreamweaver, even not perfectly, you should comment yourself.
Good luck!
I’ve never been a pro death penalty type person, but for spammers/hackers, I may have to reconsider my stance!) Good luck with cleaning up the site.
ReplyDeleteStephen, I'll let you know if and when I get it fixed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jon. I hope so too.
Elspeth, I didn't know either. I found them when I started opening every single file folder and writing down everything that was there.
Oh, Darcia, that's horrible! So sorry that happened to you.
Carol, we'll see if I can get it straightened up. If not, I may look into finding someone. If I can, I'm seriously gonna sign up for classes.
Theresa, I've been using Dreamweaver since 2004. This was the first time spam caused such a mess.
I'm with you, Jane. Spammers and hackers seldom get caught, though.
I'm sorry, but I had a bit of a giggle at your plight. I can so relate. And Dreamweaver can be a real pain sometimes -- great when it works though ;)
ReplyDeleteI hope things get sorted out for you soon -- without too many headaches :)
Not. Fun. Period.
ReplyDeleteLynda, please laugh. It is a bit comical that one day the site worked and the next it's glitching, then I go online and discover it's totally screwed up and I've got everybody from Nordstroms to porn sites tapping into the site.
ReplyDeleteGive me a month to fix it and I'll laugh with you.
Sounds like a special kind of hell!
ReplyDeleteHope you get it all sorted and can still remember how to laugh at the end of it!!
:)
This is one of the reason I don't do web programming anymore! So stressful!
ReplyDeleteIndia and Cat, the funny thing is that yesterday, after I was gone most of the day on other things, my husband asked if I had the site all straightened out yet. Grr.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like you had a great teacher, and now you're ready for the university level course.
ReplyDeleteWell...I need the university course. But I'll go kicking and screaming.
ReplyDeleteSorry I missed this post Monday. I have dug in trying to get a book finished and not online much. But this grabbed my attention. I, too, have learned Dreamweaver by the seat of my pants and thank goodness I have my daughter to help me when the sites get out of hand. I only manage two. Hate to think of adding another.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping I can get this straightened out. First, I must just buckle up and start working on it. Fear of losing the entire site is intimidating.
ReplyDelete