A customer who reads an offer on your website expects to get it. When it’s gone, the conversation starts with a disappointment, and sometimes an argument. The fix is cheap; finding them is the hard part, because they live on pages nobody revisits.
What we found
- Tax credits that ended. A heating and air company with fifteen pages telling customers about the federal energy-efficiency and clean-energy tax credits (sections 25C and 25D). Public Law 119-21 ended both at the end of 2025.
- Finished giveaways still taking entries. The same site had three giveaways that were over, each with its entry form still live and still collecting names and numbers.
- “Upcoming” events from last year. A DJ’s site listing sample events from the previous December as upcoming.
- A promotion banner that was only switched off in the code. Easy to switch back on by accident, and it still shows to anyone reading the page’s code.
Where to look
- Rebates, tax credits and financing offers, especially anything tied to a government program or a manufacturer.
- Giveaways, contests and seasonal specials, and the forms attached to them.
- Prices, package names and service areas that have changed.
- Holiday hours, “now hiring” notices, and anything with a year in it.
- Event listings and calendars.
A habit that prevents it
When you add an offer to the site, add its end date to your calendar with the page address in the reminder. When the reminder goes off, take it down or update it. That’s the whole system.
If the site is built well, offers can carry their own end date and switch themselves off. The sites we build do this for seasonal looks and specials, so nothing has to be remembered.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.