Most business owners have no idea what state their ExpressionEngine site is in. They know it’s working, they can add content, and the contact form still sends emails. Beyond that, it’s a black box. This isn’t a criticism: there’s no reason why a business owner should need to understand the internals of their CMS. But it does mean that problems can accumulate quietly over a long period before they become visible.
Here’s what actually determines whether your site is in good shape.
The current release of ExpressionEngine is 7.x. If your site is running EE 2 or EE 3, it’s on a version that hasn’t received security updates for years. EE 4 and 5 are also end-of-life. Anything below EE 6 should be considered overdue for attention.
You can usually find the EE version in the footer of the control panel when you’re logged in, or ask your developer.
This is where many older EE sites run into trouble. PHP is the server-side language that EE runs on, and it has its own version lifecycle. PHP 7.x is end-of-life. PHP 8.x is current. Your hosting environment and your EE version need to be compatible with each other.
If your server has been upgraded to PHP 8.x but your EE installation was built for PHP 5.x or 7.x, you’re likely already seeing errors or silent failures.
Third-party addons extend EE’s functionality, and most non-trivial sites depend on several of them. Each addon has its own version history and PHP/EE compatibility requirements. An addon that was installed when the site launched three years ago may not be compatible with current versions of EE or PHP.
Log into your EE control panel and go to Add-Ons. If any show as requiring an update, or if any are throwing errors, that’s a signal worth taking seriously.
This one is simple to check: does your site serve over HTTPS? If you visit your domain and the browser shows a security warning or a padlock with a problem indicator, your SSL certificate either isn’t in place or has expired. This affects both security and search engine rankings.
Page load time matters both for user experience and for SEO. You don’t need specialist tools to get a rough sense: if the site feels slow when you load it yourself, it probably is. Google’s PageSpeed Insights gives a more objective assessment and flags specific issues worth addressing.
If you want a complete assessment rather than a partial one, a formal audit covers all of the above plus a review of the codebase, hosting configuration, and security setup. For a site that’s been running for several years without specialist attention, this is usually the most efficient starting point. It tells you what’s fine, what needs attention soon, and what’s genuinely urgent.
If you want to know exactly what state your ExpressionEngine site is in, get in touch with Karl for an assessment.
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This is a distinction that matters more than most business owners realise. The site is working. Pages load, content can be updated, forms submit. From the outside, everything looks fine. But working and maintained are two very different things, and the gap between them has a cost that compounds over time.
There’s no single answer to when you should upgrade your ExpressionEngine installation, but there are several clear signals that tell you it’s overdue. Most business owners don’t think about this until something goes wrong. By then, the upgrade is usually more involved than it would have been if it had been done earlier.
Many businesses commission an ExpressionEngine audit without being clear on what it should cover. Here is what a thorough audit examines and what it usually reveals.
Most clients come to us when their site has started to feel like a risk rather than an asset. Whether the agency relationship has ended, an upgrade has been delayed, or the site has simply grown beyond what it can handle, a conversation costs nothing.
Get in touch with KarlTrusted by established businesses and growing brands across the UK
Expression 37 works with a small number of clients at any one time. These are some of them.
Karl founded Expression 37 in 2007 and has worked exclusively with ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS ever since. He does not take on work in other platforms and does not hand work to other developers. Expression 37 is deliberately small, because the kind of support that matters to clients with business-critical sites is specific to their site, not something that scales in the conventional sense. If you work with Expression 37, you work with Karl.
Find out how we workWorking with Karl on our ExpressionEngine website was an absolute game-changer for Define Creative. His expertise in translating our PSD layouts into a fully functional and visually stunning website was impressive. The meticulous attention to detail in custom HTML and CSS coding ensured that our brand identity was perfectly captured and maintained across all devices. The integration of ExpressionEngine has made managing our content effortless, and the user experience improvements have significantly enhanced visitor engagement. Karl’s commitment to performance optimisation has resulted in a smooth and efficient site that reflects our dedication to innovative design solutions. We couldn’t be happier with the final product and look forward to future collaborations!
Sarah Whitehead ~ Founder and Managing Director at Define Creative Design Ltd.
Define Creative