Jun 02 2008
Before You Hire Web Designer…
Consider this real life case. A customer hired a web design company to develop their web site, who also hosted it. RM5000 paid, web site done.
Now that their domain is about to expire, the company charges them another RM1000 plus for maintenance fee. Customer wants to change web hosting provider but the company holds on to the web site and refuses to release a copy of the web site to customer, claiming it as their copyright.
Worse still, the customer’s domain name had been registered under the web design company’s name. The company is the domain name’s legal owner. Now customer must renew with them and pay them so much to get back their domain name and web site.
I don’t know about this company. If I were a web design company, I will not hijack my customer’s web site. I will also not register my customer’s domain name under my name. Because both domain name and web site are paid up by the customer and belong to them.
So next time before you hire a web designer, consider this:
- If they register your domain name, make sure they register under your name and your email address. You can check by doing a WHOIS search on your domain name.
- Understand completely what you are paying to the web designer for domain name, hosting and web development.
- Make sure the web site copyright belongs to you. Indicate this by including a copyright notice on your web site.
- If possible, sign an agreement with your web designer to clarify all terms.
- Make sure you have all the necessary server settings including FTP (File Transfer Protocol) settings.
- Periodically backup your web site to your computer by using FTP.
- Make sure you renew your domain name and hosting before expiry date.
If you are having any problem with your web designer or web hosting provider, feel free to contact me here for help.
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