Let’s talk about something that quietly terrifies website owners everywhere:
- Your website works perfectly yesterday
- WordPress updates overnight
- Suddenly part of your site decides it has entered early retirement
Recently, I helped the St. Catharines Downtown Association, a nonprofit business improvement area group in St. Catharines, to deal with exactly this situation. It turned into a perfect example of how older WordPress sites develop technical debt — and why fixing it is often less about rebuilding and more about managing business risk and making smart long-term technology decisions.
The Website: Promoting an Entire Downtown Business Community
The SCDA website supports:
- Promoting local downtown businesses
- Operating a searchable business directory
- Communicating information and resources with association members
While it’s not processing credit cards or memberships, it is absolutely mission-supporting infrastructure. If it stops working properly, hundreds of businesses lose visibility. This is an important marketing asset!
And when something like that breaks… it’s a business risk issue.
The Problem: Directory Pages Started Breaking (But Only Kind Of)
Their business listings are stored using custom post types organized into archive pages, a solid WordPress structure.
After a WordPress 6.8 update, the top-level directory archive pages began failing.
Here’s what made it tricky:
Most of the page rendered normally. But when the footer loaded… everything collapsed like a Jenga tower missing one very specific block.
When I received a call for help, the search for assistance had been ongoing for over two months. Some of the “help” suggested included:
- Full website rebuild proposals
- Mandatory monthly maintenance retainer
- Generic troubleshooting suggestions like “disable all plugins and turn them on one-by-one”
None of those approaches addressed the actual cause of the problem.
The Real Cause: Technical Debt in an Older Custom Theme
The website used a custom-built theme created roughly eight years ago.
Custom themes are not inherently problematic. In fact, they often provide excellent flexibility and custom solutions.
But all software accumulates technical debt over time. WordPress has significantly evolved its:
- Security enforcement
- Query handling
- PHP compatibility requirements
- Template standards
Older theme logic that once worked safely can become unstable as the platform improves security. Think of it like building codes. Your house didn’t suddenly become bad; standards changed around it.
The Technical Issue (Without Getting Lost in Developer Speak)
WordPress uses database queries to determine what content appears on each page. Archive pages automatically generate their own query to pull the business directory listings.
Inside this theme, additional nested queries were being used to customize the display of businesses. That’s perfectly valid — if handled carefully. However, the theme next a custom query inside the regular query, and the original query context was never restored.
The page broke when WordPress attempted to continue rendering the footer without the original query.
WordPress tolerated this for years. It was very likely the update to WordPress 6.8 tightened internal handling and exposed the problem.
The Fix
Fortunately, this wasn’t a rebuild scenario.
The solution was simply:
- Saving the original query state
- Restoring it after the custom query completed
Once corrected, the directory pages worked normally again.
Sometimes the scariest website failures come down to small technical oversights that only surface years later.
The Big Clue & Fix
The giveaway was that failures only occurred on top-level archive pages.
When archive routing breaks, it usually means a template is overriding WordPress’s native page flow incorrectly. Once that pattern appeared, the root cause surfaced quickly.
Years of WordPress troubleshooting gives you a bit of developer instinct for these patterns. This issue didn’t need a complete rebuild. Modifying the theme code to work with the modern WordPress core was all it need to stabilize the system.
Why This Happens In Older Websites
Many small business and nonprofit websites were built between 2015 and 2019. That era saw user-friendly platforms like Wix and SqaureSpace become more cost effective, mobile internet was exploding, and e-commerce was gaining traction. WordPress also saw heavy adoption during this time, as it was and is very cost effective.
These days it is quite common to purchase a WordPress theme, or use a page builder to build out a theme. But ten years ago it was quite common to build custom themes because of the level of control and customization offered.
Older websites don’t break because they were built poorly. They break because technology ecosystems evolve, and that introduces technical debt and operational risk.
This Is Where Website Risk Management Comes In
Most organizations treat website failures as sudden emergencies. In reality, they’re usually predictable risks that build slowly over time.
Risk management for a website includes:
- Identifying aging code or theme architecture
- Monitoring compatibility with WordPress core updates
- Recognizing fragile template structures
- Planning phased modernization instead of emergency rebuilds
- Ensuring adequate free space for staging your website so you can test fixes and updates
Sometimes rebuilding is the right move. Sometimes stabilizing and modernizing gradually is the smarter and more cost-effective business decision.
A Philosophy I Work By
Not every website issue should automatically turn into a rebuild or long-term contract.
Sometimes organizations simply need honest diagnosis and practical solutions.
Providing value first helps businesses make informed decisions about their digital infrastructure. Over time, that builds stronger partnerships, better technology outcomes, and healthier websites.
Word of mouth rarely comes from selling the biggest project. It usually comes from solving the right problem at the right moment.
This approach allows organizations to:
- Control their upgrade timeline
- Reduce unnecessary spending
- Understand real risk before making large investments
The Reality for Small Businesses and Nonprofits
Not every organization needs a monthly maintenance contract.
Sometimes you just need someone who can:
- Diagnose issues quickly
- Fix targeted technical hotspots
- Identify hidden risks
- Help build a phased modernization or migration plan
That approach often reduces cost, lowers stress, and improves long-term website stability.
Websites Age Like Infrastructure
Websites aren’t static brochures. They’re software systems running inside an evolving ecosystem.
Even well-built sites accumulate technical debt. The goal isn’t avoiding it entirely, it’s recognizing when it starts creating risk.
Need Someone to Look at a Weird Website Issue?
If your site:
- Behaves differently after updates or slows down
- Has features that randomly stop working
- Was custom built several years ago
- Hasn’t had a technical review recently
…it may not need a rebuild.
It may just need targeted troubleshooting and a clear modernization roadmap.
I help small businesses, nonprofits, and community organizations across Niagara and Hamilton with:
- WordPress troubleshooting and repairs
- Website risk assessments
- Identifying hidden technical debt
- Creating phased upgrade or migration plans
No pressure. No forced retainers. No automatic “you need a new website” speeches.
Just practical diagnosis and honest recommendations.
If your website has been doing anything suspicious lately, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to take a look.
