Defining a profession.
Webkeeping.org exists to define, establish, and advocate for the profession of webkeeping — a category of work practiced by thousands of web professionals every day, now finding its name.
01 — Definition
What is webkeeping?
Here is our proposed definition:
02 — Scope of work
What does a webkeeper do?
A webkeeper is the person an organization calls when anything on their web needs attention.
Website Updates
Content changes, design tweaks, new pages, image swaps. The visible stuff that represents your organization on the web.
Operational Systems
Payment processing, appointment scheduling, online forms, event registration, member portals. The stuff your customers, patients, members, and constituents actually use.
Third-Party Tools
Hosting, CMS platforms, email services, form builders, analytics, payment processors — each with its own updates, pricing changes, and occasional breakdowns.
Triage When Things Change
A vendor gets acquired. A platform sunsets a feature. An integration breaks after an update nobody asked for. A webkeeper picks up the phone and figures it out.
03 — Professional identity
Why does webkeeping need a name?
Because the work has existed for decades without one. Web professionals have been doing this work since the early days of the internet — maintaining sites, managing tools, keeping things running for organizations that don’t have the expertise or time to do it themselves.
But there’s never been a professional term for it. Webkeeping is that word. It gives the work a professional identity — and the people who do it a name for what they are.
Other terms fall short
04 — Audience
Who needs a webkeeper?
Any organization that depends on web-based systems but doesn’t have the internal expertise to manage them. These organizations don’t need a web developer — the build is done. What they need is someone to keep it all running reliably, affordably, and without them having to think about it.
Small Businesses
With e-commerce, scheduling, or customer-facing tools.
Churches & Nonprofits
Managing event registration, donations, and member communication.
Municipalities
Running payment portals, permit systems, and public-facing agendas.
Schools
With grade portals, registration forms, and parent communication systems.
Medical & Dental Practices
With patient scheduling, intake forms, and HIPAA-compliant systems.
05 — For web professionals
Are you a webkeeper?
If you’re a web professional and your clients keep calling after the project is done — asking you to fix forms, update content, troubleshoot integrations, and manage tools you didn’t build — you might already be one.
Some web professionals embrace that role. The relationships, the trust, the steady work. Others would rather focus on new builds and hand the ongoing work to someone else.
Either way, the profession is real. The work is real. And it deserves a name.
05 — For web professionals
Are you a webkeeper?
If you’re a web professional and your clients keep calling after the project is done — asking you to fix forms, update content, troubleshoot integrations, and manage tools you didn’t build — you might already be one.
Some web professionals embrace that role. The relationships, the trust, the steady work. Others would rather focus on new builds and hand the ongoing work to someone else.
Either way, the profession is real. The work is real. And it deserves a name.
06 — In practice
Who's doing this work?
Webkeeping has been practiced since the earliest days of the commercial web, long before the term existed. Web professionals across the country do this work every day — for retainer clients, for local businesses, for organizations that just need someone to call when something breaks.
Parker Web
One of the longest-running examples is Parker Web, a U.S.-based webkeeping company that has been providing these services since 1999. Serving small businesses and community organizations in 31 states, they handle thousands of support requests annually across every major web platform. Their work helped define what webkeeping looks like in practice.
The webkeeping profession is bigger than any one company. It’s an emerging category of work that’s becoming more essential as the web gets more complicated, not less.
07 — From the Blog
Latest from Webkeeping.org
08 — A call to action
Use the word.
Webkeeping doesn’t belong to us. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a description of real work that thousands of professionals do every day, and it’s been waiting for a name.
We didn’t coin this term to own it. We coined it because the work deserves a professional identity, and the people who do it deserve a name. The more people who use it, the more real it becomes.
- Put it on your website
- Put it in your LinkedIn headline
- Use it when clients ask what you do after the build is done
- Call yourself a webkeeper if that's what you are
The word gets stronger every time someone uses it, and the profession receives more and more recognition every time a client hears it.
Explore webkeeping services at Parker Web