Visions Digital - Tampa Bay, FL

Emergency WordPress Recovery Plan: What to Do in the First Hour

Feb 09, 2026 ยท 6 min read

Engineer reviewing incident recovery steps

When your site goes down, the first hour matters most. Here is a simple recovery plan we use at Visions Digital - Tampa Bay, FL.

First hour actions

  1. Put the site in maintenance mode.
  2. Identify if it is hosting, plugin, or malware related.
  3. Change all admin and hosting passwords.
  4. Disable all plugins and switch to a default theme.
  5. Restore the last clean backup.
  6. Scan for malware and backdoors.

Do not do this

Avoid random fixes or deleting files blindly. That can erase the evidence you need for a clean restore.

Tampa Bay note

If your business relies on local traffic, downtime hurts Google trust. A fast, clean recovery protects rankings.

If you need emergency help, we respond quickly. Visions Digital - Tampa Bay, FL can stabilize your site and keep your leads moving.