Photography website has no photos
…is a bit like the cobblers children have no shoes. This experience last week was not intentional, but it was a strange phenomena that lasted a few days.
Since the launch of my new website in March 2016, I have been diligent about blog post writing and key wording and search engine optimization. I have learned that a “pretty” website and a “found” website can go hand in hand but it takes work and the best photography website is still a found photography website. I learned that I need a lot of text and specific key wording and proper alt tags on the photos.
Kicked off my photography website
Last week while writing my weekly blog post, I was kicked off my website. I immediately attributed it to a network glitch and tried to log back on. My horse photography website, hosted by WPEngine would not let me log back in to the dashboard of word press. I attempted several times, getting more annoyed at each attempt. I verified my password and re-typed. Still no luck logging back on. I requested a password reset, and oddly did not get the password reset email… I waited a little while and finally surrendered and reached out to technical support.
Accessing technical support from WPEngine was easy- in a few seconds I was on and chatting with their technical support. The technician verified my information and reset my password. Another minute or two later I was back into my wordpress dashboard. I navigated to posts section, looking for my draft I had saved for my blog post. It was gone, actually the last three blog posts were gone. I took a deep breath and tried not to panic. Fortunately, I had not closed my chat session with WPEngine technical support, so I messaged the technician to inquire about my missing blog posts.
Backing up my horse photography website
As I started to poke around a bit more on my dashboard I discovered more items missing from my website. The biggest shocker was the majority of my media library was gone. My website has over 100 blog posts and all the featured images and the images inside the blog post were all gone. The links were broken and the images were GONE! 
The technical support staff walked me through a website restore point from 24 hours earlier- no images. We tried 72 hours earlier- no images- we tried 2 weeks earlier- Still NO images. By then I had begun thinking of the daunting task of having to reload and re-link all those images to my over 100 blog posts. I think the sweat was forming on my brow, I definitely know my stomach was churning and I was overcome by anxiety.
Photography website backups still saved the day
Over the next four days, level 1, level 2 and level 3 technical support scoured my website and found the missing images. After verifying the data, they restored all my images back to their proper locations and my 404 object not found messages were gone! I was relieved and elated that their technical support were tenacious and did not leave me hanging.
After all, what’s a photography website without photographs.
Jody Miller is a professional photographer specializing in Horse Photography, Equine Photography, and Equestrian photography. Her work can be viewed online here in her gallery section, and she is also featured at these Arizona Galleries: Arts Prescott Gallery CO-OWNER, Dragonfly Arts in Cottonwood and Coops Coffee House at Talking Rock Ranch, Prescott Family Diner. Jody is also participating in the Prescott Area Artists’ Studio Tour Oct.6, 7 and 8, 2017