Castlegate’s technical insights hub

Practical case studies from our work managing complex websites.

Every website presents its own technical challenges, and solving them well requires more than theory. This section shares the real problems we encounter, the investigations we carry out, and the solutions we implement while managing websites for our clients.

We cover the issues that arise in day-to-day website management, from performance and security challenges to integration problems and unexpected technical faults. Rather than offering generic advice, we document the specific work involved: how we identified the cause of an issue, the approach we took, and the outcome we achieved.

This is a growing resource. As we complete further projects and encounter new technical challenges, we will add case studies covering additional areas of website management. If you are looking for a starting point, the articles below are a good place to begin.

Illustrating Youtube not working on IOS

Why did a YouTube video work everywhere except on iPhones?

A client’s YouTube video worked on desktop and most mobile devices, but returned Error 153 on iPhones. A VPN connection seemed to be involved, but that turned out to be a red herring. We explain how we traced the fault to a conflict in the website’s Referrer Policy, and fixed it without compromising the site’s privacy controls.

Learn more about how we fixed Error 153

Illustrating website crawlers

The importance of infrastructure in the age of AI bots

A well-known visitor attraction’s WordPress website suffered repeated instability when automated crawlers discovered a calendar system that generated an effectively unlimited number of URLs, producing around 19,000 requests in under nine hours. We explain how we identified the crawler trap and fixed the underlying calendar functionality, and what the incident reveals about the infrastructure modern WordPress websites need.

Learn more about the importance of infrastructure in the age of AI bots

A desktop device with a 503 error

WordPress can be a problem. We solve WordPress problems.

A poorly maintained WordPress website can become slow, unreliable, insecure and increasingly difficult to update. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to rebuild it. We look at how Castlegate takes on problematic WordPress websites, brings them up to modern standards and keeps them secure, performant and properly maintained.

WordPress is an extremely capable content management system, but a website that has been poorly built, inadequately maintained or allowed to fall behind can become difficult to manage surprisingly quickly. Plugins and themes become outdated or incompatible, performance deteriorates and security vulnerabilities emerge, while forms stop working, emails fail to arrive and routine updates become increasingly risky because nobody knows what might break next.

If that sounds familiar, you don’t necessarily need a new website. At Castlegate IT, we have considerable experience taking over problematic WordPress websites, identifying what is wrong with them and bringing them back under control.

Learn more about at how Castlegate takes on problematic WordPress websites

More case studies coming soon

This is a growing resource. As we complete further investigations, we will add more real-world technical case studies to this hub. In the meantime, visit our AI hub for more articles on preparing your organisation for AI.