Emergency Rescue Plan active — senior engineer replies within 12 hours See the plan →
No jargon. No fine print.

Every question, answered.

206 answers in plain English — pricing, the 48-hour delivery, what every rescue includes, secure access handover, and what stays out of scope.

206 answers 20 tickets 48h delivery No fix, no fee

Every answer on

The flat-rate model

Pricing, payment & the 48-hour clock

What exactly do I receive when the rescue is done?

The complete handover: the fix verified within the agreed scope, the rescue log, the plain-English handover document, the before/after proof of the work, every account and key still under your control, and one locked invoice in USD. Nothing else is ever billed — if anything outside the scope appears, you get a new flat-rate quote to approve before any work starts.

When does payment happen?

After the ticket is named and the price locked. One invoice, one payment, then the 48-hour clock starts. No monthly fees, no auto-renew.

What if the real cause is bigger than the ticket?

You are told straight in the diagnosis, before any work outside scope. A new flat-rate quote is presented and you approve it, or the rescue stays inside the original ticket.

What happens at hour 48 exactly?

The handover lands: the verified fix, the rescue log, the plain-English document, before/after proof, your keys still under your control, and one locked USD invoice.

Can delivery be faster than 48 hours?

Yes — a 12-hour express at double the flat price, chosen before payment. Same locked-price logic, half the window. The 48-hour clock is the standard; the 12-hour clock is your option.

Plain English

For business owners, not IT departments

My site is on Shopify, Wix or Squarespace — can you still help me?

Yes. These rescues work on the platform your business actually runs on — Shopify, WordPress and WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, BigCommerce, or a custom-built site. Same flat price, same 48-hour clock, same plain-English handover at the end.

I don't know anything about hosting, code or servers. Is that a problem?

It is exactly who these rescues are for. You describe the problem the way you would tell a neighbor ("my checkout stopped taking orders"), you get a one-page plain-English plan, and you receive the fix written for a business owner — not for an IT department. You never have to touch the technical side.

What does "down for an hour" actually cost me?

For most online businesses it is revenue plus trust: every quiet hour is a filled cart that never happened, and repeat visitors remember the outage, not the apology. The rescue compresses that damage to one 48-hour window — and there is a 12-hour express at 2× the flat price when the fire is hottest.

How do I know which of the 30 rescues I need?

You do not need to — that is the job. You send the symptom in your own words, and the diagnosis (included, before any charge) names the cause and the right ticket. If the real cause is bigger than the ticket, you are told before any work happens and you approve the next step.

Will I be locked into monthly fees or a retainer?

No. One flat price per rescue, one matching payment, and it is done. No retainer, no subscription, no auto-renew. You keep the handover, and if something bigger shows up later, that is a new rescue you can approve or decline.

Security & Emergencies

Security & Emergencies — questions

How much does the Hack Cleanup & Malware Removal rescue cost?

$3,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Will my site lose data or content during the cleanup?

No. The cleanup works on the live data and keeps your content intact. Rebuilding or data recovery is never part of a standard cleanup, but I flag anything fragile in the forensics report before touching it.

How do I know the site is really clean after the fix?

The rescue ends with a fresh scan and a forensics report that documents what was found, what was removed, and how access was hardened. You keep that report.

What if the site gets hacked again?

Same attacker, same infection type, within 60 days — I will re-clean it free and tighten the hole they used. The report gives you evidence we can both compare against.

How much does the Domain Hijack Recovery rescue cost?

$3,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Can you get my domain back if it was stolen?

In most cases the domain can be recovered through the registrar — The company where your domain name is registered — whoever controls that account controls the domain. using a documented chain of proof plus escalation to the registry when a registrar stalls. If the domain was resold to a third party, case-specific legal steps apply — you stay part of that decision.

How fast can this happen?

Damage control and the recovery package are delivered inside 48 hours. Actual transfer-back time depends on the registrar and their fraud team — usually a few days once the case is filed.

Will my website and email survive the recovery?

That is the first thing we protect. We secure the accounts that depend on the domain before the transfer is finalized, so the recovery does not create a second outage.

How much does the Checkout Crash & Stability Rescue rescue cost?

$4,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Do you fix the bug or just patch it?

If the checkout fails because of a specific root cause — a plugin — An add-on that extends your CMS; outdated or abandoned plugins are the most common way sites get hacked. conflict, a caching defect, a server bottleneck — I fix that cause. Temporary patches that melt at the next surge are exactly what the 48-hour process is designed to avoid.

Will a sale be lost while you work?

No. The audit is read-only. Fixes are deployed carefully and verified immediately, with the ability to roll back in seconds if anything looks off.

Do you support Shopify too, or only WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the most common case, but cart and checkout stability on Shopify, BigCommerce, and custom carts are covered by the same audit-and-test process.

How much does the Bot Traffic & Anti-Bot Defence rescue cost?

$4,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Will this slow down real customers?

No. The challenge rules apply only to traffic that behaves like a bot. Regular shoppers on normal devices pass through with no change to the checkout experience.

Do I need Cloudflare already?

Cloudflare is the recommended edge, and onboarding is included in the rescue. If you use another CDN — Content Delivery Network — copies of your files served from cities near each visitor, so pages load faster worldwide. or security layer, I configure on that and document the trade-offs.

How do I know it is actually working after 48 hours?

You receive a monitor showing challenged and blocked requests over time. If the bot pattern changes, the rules adapt — and you see that in the log.

How much does the PCI Compliance Audit & Remediation rescue cost?

$6,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Is this a full QSA audit?

No — it is the technical posture and remediation a small merchant does before a QSA or their processor's SAQ becomes real. If you specifically need a certified QSA signature, that must come from an approved assessor.

Can I really become compliant in 48 hours?

For most small e-commerce sites, yes — because compliance is mostly removing card data from your own servers, which is a focused change, and documenting it.

What happens if I ignore this?

Processors can fine or drop you, and card-brand rules plus the FTC apply directly to merchants. A breach when you were non-compliant is the expensive combination — this rescue is the cheap insurance.

How much does the Downtime Response & Continuity Plan rescue cost?

$4,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How long is the plan?

One page. If the plan cannot fit on one page, it will not be read in the middle of a crisis. Supporting details live in a credentials and runbook vault behind it.

Does the drill take my site offline?

No. The drill is a tabletop walkthrough and a safe test of access and restore paths, not an actual outage. Nothing production gets touched without your explicit approval.

What kind of sites is this for?

E-commerce, SaaS, and agency-managed sites that live or die on availability — the common thread is you want the next outage to be short and boring.

How much does the Lockdown & Post-Breach Hardening rescue cost?

$15,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

This is not a WordPress cleanup, right?

Correct. There may be no malware left at all. The point is proving the attacker cannot come back — every door closed, not just the ones that were used. Cleanup of lingering files is included, but it is the smallest part of the scope.

What exactly gets sealed?

Every credential, key, DNS record, cron job, integration, and service account that touches your systems — plus the ones nobody remembered. Each one is closed, rotated, or removed, and the closure is documented as proof.

Who is the board report for?

Owners, directors, insurers, and legal. It is written so a non-technical reader understands the severity, the response, and the remaining risk — without dumping jargon or overhead on top of the work that was done.

How much does the Total Takeover Recovery rescue cost?

$12,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Can a stolen domain really come back?

In the vast majority of cases, yes — through the registrar's account-recovery and fraud-escalation channels, backed by the proof of ownership we assemble. Speed matters, and this recovery starts the same day.

What if parts of the site are gone for good?

What is recoverable is recovered; what is not is rebuilt to match. You are told the difference explicitly up front, with no downgrade hidden in the log.

Do you handle a stolen social or email too?

Reputation accounts connected to the site are part of the same recovery where they were taken with it — we do not stop at the domain and leave your email hijacked.

How much does the Preventive Hardening rescue cost?

$7,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Is this the same as a firewall subscription?

A firewall is a tool you rent. Hardening is the posture that makes the tool decide correctly — accounts, DNS, permissions, updates, backups. The two work together, but the posture is the part people usually skip.

Can you pair this with a takeover recovery?

Yes — it is the natural second half. When added to Total Takeover Recovery, the price pairing is $12,000 + $7,500, and the recovery's final lock step becomes this full hardening instead of a basic one.

Do I need it even if I was never hacked?

That is exactly who it is for. If you have already been hit, start with Lockdown. If you have not, this is the version that means you may never need the one that follows.

How much does the Shielded Checkout rescue cost?

$14,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How is this different from a checkout fix?

A fix repairs what broke — a plugin conflict, a caching issue, a server bottleneck. This is a full architectural hardening: card data moved to tokenized flows so it never touches your server, load-tested under spike traffic, fraud rules in front of it, and PCI scope reduced. A fix costs $4,500. This costs $14,500 because it rebuilds the room instead of patching the wall.

Will it slow real customers down?

No. The tokenized flow is the same speed for a human; the fraud and security tests run against the traffic that behaves like an attack, not the one that behaves like a customer.

Does it work on Shopify and WooCommerce?

Yes — the same hardening maps to hosted carts and custom checkouts. The work is at the layer both of them share: the payment flow, its gateway, and the edge in front of it.

Speed, SEO & Performance

Speed, SEO & Performance — questions

How much does the Website Speed Optimization rescue cost?

$2,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How fast will my site actually get?

Most sites we rescue go from 5–8 seconds to under 2 seconds on mobile. I give you before/after measurements so you are not taking my word for it.

Will it break my site or my plugins?

No. Every change is staged, tested, and reversible. The rescue ends with a full regression pass so your features still work exactly as before — only faster.

Do you fix mobile speed too, or just desktop?

Both. Mobile is where Google measures and where most of your traffic sits, so the optimization is built around the mobile experience first.

How much does the Email Deliverability / Spam Rescue rescue cost?

$2,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How fast will my emails hit the inbox?

With correct records and cleaned lists, most senders see inbox placement return within the first days and stabilize within two to four weeks of warm-up.

I already use a tool like Mailchimp. Do I still need this?

Tools do not fix your domain's records or reputation. Even Gmail-you@yourcompany.com needs SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to stop being misclassified.

What does the warm-up involve day to day?

A controlled ramp of sends to engaged recipients with delivery monitoring. I configure it so it runs without your team micromanaging it.

How much does the SEO / Google Index Recovery rescue cost?

$3,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How do I know if it is a penalty or a technical error?

The first step of the rescue separates the two. Manual actions appear in Search Console with a reason; technical errors appear in crawl data. The diagnosis tells you which one you are dealing with — and what to fix.

How long until Google shows me again?

When the cause is technical, re-inclusion usually starts within days of the fix and can take a few weeks to fully rebuild. You will see the first recoveries in Search Console inside that window.

Do you do link building or content?

No. This rescue is the technical recovery that reconnects the pages you already have. If content and links are the next problem, the report says so honestly — instead of selling you a subscription.

What if I need more than a technical fix?

If the technical fix is not enough — you need rankings rebuilt, not just pages re-indexed — Google Resurrection is the premium version. It adds content and internal-link rebuilding so the rankings come back stronger, not just back.

How much does the Database Performance Rescue rescue cost?

$4,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Will the rescue touch my actual business data?

Your data is preserved. The work is indexes, configuration, and the removal of genuinely obsolete records — all backed up and reversible before the first change.

What if the problem is the schema, not the data?

Query profiling shows whether the issue is design or maintenance. Schema fixes are included when they are the root cause, with the migration handled carefully.

How will I know it helped?

Before/after query time, load numbers, and database size are captured and handed over. You will see the difference in numbers, and in your page response times.

How much does the VPS Optimization & Server Tuning rescue cost?

$3,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Will I need a bigger (more expensive) server?

Usually not. Most slow VPSs are under-configured, not undersized. If your box genuinely lacks capacity, the report will say so with measurements instead of a guess.

Which servers do you support?

Any Linux VPS — nginx, Apache, cPanel, or custom stacks. Cloud providers such as AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, and Vultr variants are all standard.

Is there any downtime while tuning?

No planned downtime. Configuration changes are applied and tested without dropping service, and anything risky is staged first.

How much does the Ad-to-Conversion Pre-Flight rescue cost?

$4,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Does this replace my ad management?

No. The rescue is the technical side that makes your ads work — landing speed, tracking hygiene, and conversion path. Your media buyer keeps buying; I keep the site from eating the budget.

Which ad platforms does tracking cover?

Google Ads, Meta, and TikTok pixels are covered, plus server-side tracking setups where they exist. If tagging is messing up conversion data, first we make it correct.

What counts as success after 48 hours?

Landing vitals in the green, tracking firing cleanly, and a verified test conversion. From there your next campaigns run on real, trustworthy numbers.

How much does the SEO Performance Campaign rescue cost?

$25,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

What does the 3× guarantee mean exactly?

If the campaign does not return three times its spend within 30 days of launch, the $5,000 run-fee is refunded. The angle and the assets stay yours — they are the part we designed, and they still have value.

So is it $25,000 or could it be more?

Base scope is $25,000. If your brief goes beyond 2,000 characters, each additional 1,000 characters adds $1,500, so we design only what you actually give us — every detail and every price is locked before work.

Who runs the campaign after the 30 days?

You own the landing page, the ads, and the angle. Whether we keep running it is a separate, simple decision — priced plainly, never an automatic renewal.

How much does the Google Resurrection rescue cost?

$7,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How long until Google shows me again?

Re-inclusion of corrected pages usually begins within days of the fix and compounds over the following weeks. The evidence is visible in Search Console, which is part of what you keep.

Is human penalty recovery included?

Manual actions are diagnosed and handled with the correct remediation — the rescue includes the response package and resubmission. What it does not sell is a way to skip the line.

Do you promise page one?

No one can promise a specific position. What is promised is the reversal of the event, correct re-inclusion, and a rebuild that removes the technical reasons you cannot rank.

Servers & Infrastructure

Servers & Infrastructure — questions

How much does the Website / Host Migration rescue cost?

$4,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Is there really no downtime?

The cutover is designed for zero customer-visible downtime: the new server is fully built and tested before DNS switches, and DNS TTL is lowered beforehand so the switch is instant.

What if something goes wrong after the move?

A full rollback is prepared and kept warm for 48 hours after cutover. If anything smells wrong, we roll back in one command with your data intact, then retry the move.

Do you set up the new hosting account too?

Yes. If you need a new VPS, I configure it, secure it, and migrate into it as part of the same rescue — typeset to your workload, not a generic image.

How much does the Backup System & Restore Test rescue cost?

$2,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How long will my site take to restore?

The test-restore defines the answer for your exact site. Typical results are under an hour, and you keep the timed, documented restore as proof.

Where do the backups live?

Three independent destinations, following 3-2-1: primary, off-site, and a second region — each encrypted. No single vendor or event can take all three out at once.

Do I pay for the storage space?

Storage is billed to your own cloud accounts at their normal rates. I configure it to keep overhead minimal (compressed and pruned), and it stays yours even after the rescue.

How much does the Hosting Consolidation & Cost Cut rescue cost?

$2,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Roughly how much can I save?

Typical results are a 40–70% cut in monthly hosting-related spend, plus fewer renewals and add-ons to track. Your real number comes from your real invoices, which is the audit's first output.

Is it safe to put everything on one server?

Yes — different workloads can safely share a properly configured server. Separation (test, staging, and production, or client sites) is handled with proper directory and resource isolation, not physical hardware.

What if I have client sites on those accounts?

The same audit applies: consolidate under your control, keep client isolation correct, and document the new access so you stop being chained to old reseller panels.

How much does the Developer Exit & Access Recovery rescue cost?

$4,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

What if I don't remember which accounts exist?

That is exactly what the rescue solves. I reverse-engineer the dependency list from your live site and billing history, then pull every account back under your control.

Do you need legal action against the old developer?

Almost always no. Everything needed is recovered through registrars, hosts, and providers using standard account-recovery procedures — which is why the 48-hour timeline is realistic.

Will the site keep working during this?

Yes. Nothing is disrupted; access is recovered and secured in place. Users see no change, because the recovery is about the account layer, not the site itself.

How much does the Plugin & Subscription Spend Audit rescue cost?

$4,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Do you keep every plugin I actually need?

Yes. The audit removes the waste, not the function. If a tool is used and earning its cost, it stays and I justify it in the report.

Can I really cut spending without losing features?

Most audits find duplicate or stale licenses. Removing them loses nothing. Where a cheaper replacement covers the same need, that is offered as an option — never as a forced change.

What about discounts via renewal negotiation?

Negotiating annual rates or consolidating licenses is part of the process where it applies, and the savings show up in the same report.

How much does the Support Team Hours Tracking rescue cost?

$5,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Which tool is used?

The choice matches your stack and budget — from simple, exportable trackers up to integrations with the ticket system you already pay for. No new tool is added if the current one can do the job.

Will my team hate this?

The setup is designed around daily work, not micromanagement. Honest teams find it useful — it turns their paid hours into verifiable, billable proof.

Can reports be used for client invoicing?

Yes. Deliverables include exportable reports suitable for billing clients by the hour or verifying a flat-fee scope.

How much does the LTS Migration & Database Rebuild rescue cost?

$12,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Is it a redesign of my website?

No. The site keeps its brand, content, and behavior. What gets fully reworked is the database and the stack underneath it — the part that decides whether everything else is fast or slow.

What does the +$1,500 / 100 GB mean?

The base price includes migration of the platform plus up to 100 GB of database. Every additional 100 GB (or part of one) adds $1,500, so the size of your data is priced transparently up front.

What happens after the two years?

The stack is built to be upgradable without another migration — version and host changes are then normal maintenance, not a project. If you do grow beyond it, you will see it coming in the numbers.

How much does the Ant-Theft Spend Audit rescue cost?

$5,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Do you cancel things automatically?

No. Every cancellation is your call, shown with the evidence. The audit's job is to make each decision obvious — keep or cut — instead of leaving it to the default of another renewal year.

How much do businesses usually save?

Common results run 40–70% of the audited bill for the sand-theft lines, because duplicates, dead licenses, and overpriced hosting dominate what is found. Your number comes from your invoices.

What if I actually need most of it?

Then the report says so and justifies each line you keep, rather than inventing cuts to look productive. The savings is whatever the receipts honestly support.

How is this different from the Plugin & Subscription Audit?

The Plugin Audit ($4,000) finds what you are paying for and not using. This audit ($5,000) adds three things: receipt-based proof of every cut, renewal negotiation where it applies, and a renewal calendar that keeps the savings from slipping back. The extra $1,000 buys proof, not just recommendations.

How much does the 3-2-1 Real Backup rescue cost?

$4,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Where exactly do the copies live?

Three independent destinations across two continents — primary, off-site, and a second region — each encrypted, on storage you own or rent without lock-in. No single vendor or event can take all three.

How is this different from a standard backup setup?

The standard setup installs a tool. This one engineers the policy, the geographic diversity, the encryption, and then proves the restore under a clock you watch. The proof is the product.

Do I pay for storage separately?

Storage is billed to your own accounts at their normal rates, configured to stay small with compression and pruning. It is yours even if every other agreement disappears.

Buying, Selling & Diligence

Buying, Selling & Diligence — questions

How much does the Technical Due Diligence (M&A) rescue cost?

$9,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

What exactly gets audited?

Code health and security, infrastructure and access, licensing and subscriptions, third-party dependencies, data handling, and concentration on any single person or service. All mapped to risk and cost.

Can this be done under NDA?

Yes — NDAs against the target or their advisor are supported, with access handled through controlled channels so the acquisition stays confidential.

How is the report priced and delivered?

Flat $9,000, independent of deal size, delivered within 48 hours as a PDF plus the supporting data. No hourly billing, no scope creep.

How much does the Business Radiography STANDARD rescue cost?

$12,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How do I send my business?

In your own words, up to 2,000 characters — what you sell, where the money goes, and what worries you. If you send more, each additional 1,000 characters adds $1,500, so you can be as thorough as it deserves.

Is this the same as a technical audit?

No. A technical audit answers what is broken in the system. A radiography answers what is leaking in the business — of which the technology is one part, and rarely the most expensive.

Why is this sold personally?

Because a machine-compiled checklist is not the same deliverable. The owner reviews, records, and signs it. That is the difference you are paying for, and the reason the price is what it is.

How is this different from the Deep Dive?

The Standard is the scalable version your team can support: 25-minute video + 3-page report. The Deep Dive adds everything that cannot be delegated — full technical documentation, intellectual capital valuation, fiscal appraisal, process mapping, and risk analysis. The Standard is the entry point; the Deep Dive is the board-ready asset.

How much does the Business Radiography DEEP DIVE rescue cost?

$25,000 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

How is this different from the Standard?

The Standard gives you a 25-minute video and a 3-page report — the scalable version. The Deep Dive adds everything that cannot be delegated: full technical documentation, intellectual capital valuation, fiscal appraisal, process mapping, and risk analysis. Same owner, much deeper scope.

Can my team do this instead?

No. The Deep Dive is specifically owner-led because it requires the judgment and context that only comes from the person who runs the company. That is why it is not scalable, and that is why it holds up to board and investor scrutiny.

What is the leather-bound book?

The physical deliverable: a professionally printed and bound document containing everything from the Deep Dive — technical documentation, valuations, process maps, risk analysis. It is designed to sit in a boardroom or a data room, not on a hard drive.

How do I send my business?

In your own words, up to 2,000 characters — what you sell, where the money goes, and what worries you. If you send more, each additional 1,000 characters adds $1,500.

Big-Moment Packs

Big-Moment Packs — questions

How much does the The Raptor Pack (Pre-Sale Tune-Up) rescue cost?

$7,500 flat, all-in. Price locked before work starts, delivered in 48 hours, and if it can't be delivered within scope you don't pay. No hourly meter, no surprise line items.

Is this cheaper than booking the three rescues separately?

Yes. The three rescues list at $11,500 separately; the pack is a single $7,500 scope covering all of them, because they share the same audit and one engineer.

When should I book the Raptor Pack?

At least one week before a launch, sale, or busy season — the 48-hour work plus a few days of buffer lets the email warm-up and the monitoring start proving themselves before traffic arrives.

Do I still get individual reports for each part?

Yes. Speed numbers, restore test, and deliverability report are all documented as part of the pack's single rescue log.

From the guides

Plain-English guide questions

What's a good website speed score?

Google's Core Web Vitals give green ranges for its three real-phone measurements: LCP under 2.5 seconds (how fast the main content appears), CLS under 0.1 (how stable the page is), and INP under 200ms (how responsive clicks feel).

Does hosting really matter that much?

Yes. On shared hosting you're renting a corner of a server with noisy neighbors. A properly sized VPS or dedicated setup removes the biggest invisible bottleneck — and is often where 80% of the remaining gain comes from.

Should I pay the ransom they ask on the hack screen?

Almost never. Extortion screens on WP sites are usually automated malware looking for a quick payout — they rarely restore anything, and paying tells the attacker you're worth revisiting.

Can I just restore an old backup?

Only if the backup is clean — and the backdoor can live in files you restored. Once the site is restored, the hackers can stroll back in through the same door. The infection has to be removed at the source.

Is it dangerous to fix SPF myself?

One wrong character in an SPF record can take all your email down. Because it's a text record on your DNS, the fix is safe to attempt — but small errors are the #1 cause of 'it was working before that change' email emergencies.

Why did deliverability work before and break now?

Something changed: a new sending server, a new tool, or a colleague 'tidyed up' DNS TXT records. Deliverability isn't set once — it has to match exactly what your outgoing mail looks like, which is what the audit checks.

My payments pass in the test but fail for real customers. Why?

Test cards bypass the real-world failure points: payment processor rules, 3D-Secure, geolocation blocks, and currency conversions. 'Works in the test' and 'works under real traffic' are different things.

Could it be a plugin conflict?

Very common — a discount, tax, or shipping plugin's update breaks the checkout flow quietly. That's why the log moment-of-failure matters: it names the component that threw the error.

Can my host reset access for me?

Often yes — your hosting provider can reset credentials if you own the account. The registrar (where the domain lives) is the one that matters most and sometimes the hardest to recover, so verify ownership documents early.

What if the developer won't hand it over?

Work-access disputes are a legal matter, and a calm factual request plus the threat of a formal claim usually works faster than an argument. The technical recovery and the legal angle should run in parallel.

Can the thief change the email on my domain without me noticing?

Yes, and that's why inbox security is part of the story: a compromised email account is a silent doorway to a domain takeover. If your mailbox was accessed, secure it in the same session.

How long does a hijack recovery take?

Technical recovery and DNS restoration can be fast once ownership is proven; bureaucratic registrar claims can take days. The rescue's job is to push the fast part as hard as possible and keep the claim moving.

Is Shopify easier to keep running than WordPress?

Shopify runs its own hosting, so the server side is invisible to you — but you still hit checkout, app, billing, and access problems, and when you do, you're a merchant, not a developer. On WordPress you own the whole stack: more control, more ways to break. The rescue model covers both.

Which of the 20 rescues is mine?

You don't have to know. You send the symptom in your own words, and the diagnosis names the ticket. Hacked WordPress, a checkout that crashes on a big day, slow page loads, emails in spam, a stolen domain, a developer who vanished — each maps to one flat-rate rescue.

Will I need to learn code to manage the fix?

No. You approve a plain-English plan, get a plain-English report at the end, and keep every access key. If you want, you never have to touch anything technical at all.

How do I tell a host outage from my own site breaking?

A host status page reporting an incident plus many reports on Downdetector means the provider is down — waiting is the only fix. If the host is green and only your site fails, the fault is inside your account: DNS, server config, or an exhausted resource.

Can an expired domain really take my email down too?

Yes — your domain points both the website and the mail records. When it lapses, mail stops being delivered to you and the site goes dark together. Renew it the same day; some registrars add a grace period, some don't.

Will fixing the certificate lose me my Google ranking?

The opposite. While the site is 'not secure', Search Console flags it and browsers block it, which suppresses traffic. Restoring a valid certificate removes the warning and the penalty signal.

Why does the warning come back after I renew?

Usually because the renewed cert doesn't cover all the hostnames in use, or an old redirect points at the wrong one. The redirect and the certificate have to be fixed together, not separately.

Did I lose all my content when this error appeared?

Almost never. The data is usually still on disk; the site simply can't open it. In most cases the database is repaired from a snapshot and content comes back intact — which is why stopping writes early matters.

Can my host fix it for me?

Hosts will confirm the database service is running and may restore a recent snapshot, but they won't repair a corrupted schema or untangle a bad migration. That's the part that needs the rescue.

How do I know it's a penalty and not an update?

A manual action appears as a message in Search Console; an update shows as a broad, industry-wide shift with no message. If Search Console is silent and you weren't doing anything risky, it's almost always an update or a technical fault.

Can traffic come back after a technical fix?

Yes — technical drops recover far faster than algorithmic ones. Once crawling and indexing are restored, rankings usually return within days to a few weeks, which is why diagnosing the cause early is worth it.

Can I just ask Google to review and be done?

You can, and if the site is already clean the listing lifts in hours or days. But reviewing a site that still serves malware fails the check and can deepen the penalty — clean first, then request the review.

Will my traffic and rankings fully recover?

Yes in the vast majority of cases. Once the listing is removed and the infection is gone, the warning stops suppressing clicks and rankings recover; a permanent drop is rare and usually points to a separate technical problem.

Can I switch hosts to escape the suspension?

Moving hosts before understanding the cause usually carries the trigger with you — a hacked file or a resource-hungry script travels with the data. Diagnose first, then migrate if the host relationship is beyond repair.

What if the spike was legitimate traffic I want?

Then the fix is capacity and caching, not apologising. A shared plan has hard limits; the rescue can tell you whether you need a bigger plan, better caching, or a small server of your own.

The form said 'message sent' — isn't that proof it worked?

No. That message usually means the form handed the email to a mail service, not that it was delivered. The failure happens further down the path, which is why there's no error on the page.

Why do some messages arrive and others don't?

Provider filtering is content- and sender-sensitive: a short test often passes while a message with links or attachments is filtered. Consistent failure points at configuration; inconsistent failure points at spam filtering.

Why is a flat rate different from an hourly quote?

An hourly quote hands the risk of a messy job to you, so the bill grows exactly when the problem is worst. A flat rate prices the outcome, not the time — the number you agree to is the number you pay, even if the fix takes twice as long as expected.

Can I get a price before I commit?

Yes. Tell us the symptom and you get a reply within 12 hours with the matching ticket and its fixed price. Nothing is charged until you approve it, and the price is locked at that moment.

How do I estimate my revenue per hour of downtime?

Start with your typical weekly online revenue and divide it by the hours you sell in that week. If you sell around the clock, divide by 168; if you are B2B on business hours, divide by 40. The number is rough, but it is far better than guessing.

Does downtime actually hurt Google rankings?

A brief outage rarely moves rankings on its own, but repeated failures, slow error responses and a site that stays down for days can all cost you visibility. The customers who left during the outage, though, never see the recovery at all.

How long does it take for a new site to show up on Google?

Anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. New domains are crawled more cautiously, and Google has to discover, crawl and index a page before it can rank. If weeks pass with nothing at all, it is time to diagnose rather than wait.

Can I pay Google to appear in the results?

You can pay for ads, but you cannot buy your way into the free results — and anyone selling 'guaranteed #1 rankings' is not being honest with you. Free results are earned by being crawlable, fast and genuinely useful.

Isn't a VPS more work to manage?

It can be, if you set it up alone. The point of the rescue is that you get a tuned, monitored server with maintenance automated — not a blank machine and a manual.

Will moving hosts take my site offline?

Not when it is done properly. The site is copied and tested on the new server first, DNS is switched only once it is proven, and the old host stays available as a fallback until you are confident.

Can I just reinstall WordPress to fix it?

Reinstalling core rarely helps and can make it worse. The break is almost always a plugin or theme, so you roll back the suspect — not the whole platform.

Will I lose content if I roll back?

No. Restoring the last good files and database brings back exactly what you had. The only thing you would re-add is anything published after that point.

Isn't hourly cheaper for small jobs?

Sometimes — a 20-minute fix is a 20-minute fix. The problem is you can't tell 20 minutes from 20 hours before you start, which is exactly the uncertainty a flat rate removes.

What stops a flat rate from being padded?

The same thing that keeps any price honest: you compare it before you buy. A flat rate is public and fixed up front, so a high one simply loses to a lower one.

Can't I just reinstall the tracking tags?

That is how you end up with duplicates counting every sale twice. The real fix is tracing what fires, when and where, then removing whatever is double.

How much does a tracking break actually cost?

It costs you the ability to know — every budget decision after the break is a guess. Fixing it is usually cheaper than one wasted week of ad spend.

Why does my shared hosting get slow for no reason?

Because you share the machine. Neighbors' spikes eat the same CPU, RAM and I/O — you can't tune your way out of a plan that meters the whole box.

Is managed hosting ever worth it?

For maintenance it is — updates, backups, a hand to hold. For performance and emergencies it's the same remote machine as shared, with a friendlier front desk.

How do I know I need a VPS instead?

When saved-up problems appear — slow afternoons, support tickets that take days, an upgrade that only exists one tier up — the plan has become the bottleneck.

How do I know if it was an algorithm update?

Check the date. If traffic dropped within days of a confirmed core update and there is no manual action in Search Console, it was the algorithm — the fix is usually waiting it out and strengthening content, not quick changes.

What if some pages dropped but not others?

That points to the individual pages or the queries feeding them — a changed redirect, a removed internal link, even a page that went slow. Section-by-section drops are rarely a site-wide penalty.

Can a technical problem look like a penalty?

Yes, and it is the most common mix-up. A noindex tag, a wasted robots.txt, or a site that got 10x slower makes Google drop pages by itself, with no manual action anywhere. That is the case to catch early.

Why is mobile slower than desktop even on my Wi-Fi?

Because phones use a weaker processor and mobile networks serve content differently. Google's real-user numbers (LCP under 2.5s) are measured on real phones for exactly this reason — desktop speed is not mobile speed.

Is it always the images?

Images are the most common single cause, so start there — but if compression and resizing change nothing, the blockage is scripts or the server. The six checks above exist to find which one it is.

How much faster can a rescue actually make it?

Sites we tune typically land Core Web Vitals in the green: LCP under 2.5 seconds and CLS under 0.1. The report includes the before/after numbers, so you can see exactly what moved.

What's the catch with a 48-hour flat rate?

The catch is the scope, not the price. A flat rate only stays honest when the outcome is defined in a sentence. The moment 'help with my website' is accepted as the scope, watch for a change order. The whole skill is writing that one sentence.

Can a flat-rate shop really fix anything in 48 hours?

Not everything — which is why the scope matters. A broken checkout, a hacked WordPress site, a database collapse: these are bounded problems with known playbooks, and 48 hours is realistic. 'Rebuild my whole platform' is not a rescue, and an honest flat rate says so before quoting.

What if it turns out to be bigger than expected?

The agreed price still holds for the agreed outcome — that is the business model, and why the no-fix, no-fee guarantee exists. If a genuinely new problem surfaces, it is quoted as a new flat rate, not as an endless hourly meter.

Why would a confirmation email never arrive but spam still land?

They are different pipelines. Marketing email is pushed by a provider that fights whitelisting; transactional email is pulled by triggers and delivered through SMTP with its own authentication. A broken trigger, a full queue, or an expired DNS record kills confirmations while marketing keeps flowing.

Is a confirmation email going to spam, or not sent at all?

The biggest mistake is guessing. Transactional systems log every send, so the answer is in the logs: 'accepted' means it left your server, 'bounced' means your SPF/DKIM/DMARC failed, and neither means it was silently dropped. Check the log before touching DNS.

What if it's only some customers who don't get theirs?

Then it's probably their provider, or a records problem on your side that only affects some domains after a DNS change. A test to Gmail, a work address, and an outlook address will usually expose the pattern in under ten minutes.

Why do ads work for competitors but not for me?

Because they're not the same page. The ad only wins the click; the page has to close the sale. If your page is slow on mobile, fires no clean tracking, or leaks at checkout, no amount of ad spend fixes it — that's infrastructure, not creative.

How do I know the problem is the page and not the offer?

Change one variable. Test the identical offer on a page you've verified loads fast, tracks cleanly and checks out — if it converts there, the page was the leak, and the pre-flight just proved it.

Is it worth pre-flighting before more ad spend?

It's cheaper than the alternative. One week of ads pointed at a page that physically can't convert costs more than the flat pre-flight, and the report tells you exactly which stage to fix instead of guessing.

My host said 'no backups'. Do I really have none?

Usually you have some. Hosts take nightly snapshots even when the marketing says backups are a paid extra — cPanel and similar panels often expose them one click deep. Ask for its restore page before accepting 'it's all gone'.

Is the Wayback Machine a real backup?

It's a backup of what was public: your pages, your copy, your images as crawled. It won't give you the database, passwords or checkout history. For static site content it's surprisingly complete and free.

What costs more: recovery or prevention?

Recovery by far. A hosted nightly backup with a tested restore is pennies a day; recovering a dead database is measured in thousands and may not succeed. If you just had a scare, that's the lesson to act on.

Is Google legally or algorithmically 'stuck' on an old version?

No. Search engines are crawling machines with budgets. If your page's priority is low or your CDN keeps serving identical-old content, Google has little reason to re-crawl. It's not a penalty and not a blacklist — it's crawl economics.

How long does a re-crawl request take?

Usually a day to a few days for a normal page. If a week passes with no new 'last crawl' date, the deeper three-layer check (host cache, CDN, redirect) is where the problem sits.

Does 'Request Indexing' cost anything?

No, it's free in Google Search Console and you can use it on one page at a time. What it doesn't do is override technical staleness — a cached CDN still hands Google the old file regardless of your request.

Is it really worth spending time on this before hiring?

It's the highest-ROI hour you'll spend. Every item you collect removes one thing an engineer will otherwise bill you for locating — and a client who arrives prepared also gets honest quotes faster, because the scope is 'fix this' instead of 'find what I need first'.

What if I don't have the hosting credentials anymore?

That's the most common recovery case — usually the person who built the site took them along. Hosts can reset panel access if you can prove ownership by email, and the same documents that prove it (invoice, domain registrar) unlock most recovery paths.

Should I give a contractor all my passwords?

Only what the job needs, and never more. Hosting panel with a temporary password is usually enough — you can rotate it after they finish. Handing over your main email or admin accounts 'just in case' is how surprise bills happen.