Held To Ransom By Web Designer

What were the exact terms of the contract between your friend and the web designer? Does the web designer hold copyright or does your friend? What about the hosting, was that defined according to the contract?

1) I doubt there's a way of getting the passwords as it would be the web designers account and a breach of data, unless allowed by the contract. Domain ownership and hosting of that domain are two different things.

2) You can use various tools (such as HTTrack) to spider a website, some work better than others. There may be problems with database driven sites.

Your friend should take the contract and discuss it with a qualified lawyer.

It's very important on large site designs to:-

a. pay in agreed stages

b. confirm copyright

c. host with your own host

Unfortunately you're in a bad situation and I agree a lawyer is needed ASAP.

Rich

Your friend is screwed.

Unless he specifically had a contract that said the design was work for hire, the web designer holds the copyright. In the absence of a contract, copyright is retained by the AUTHOR of the work. That is the designer.

This is one of the first lessons in the online school of hard knocks, and I'm sorry your friend had to learn it the hard way.

yes, there is software that you can use to scrape the site and save the files to your HD. I do not know if this can be had for free though. the first thing to do is buy time by playing the game of pretending that you are going along with whatever the developer says. Next, go to whois and look up the ownership of the domain, that is key. If the developer is the owner of the domain you need to get a new domain and move on. If he or she is not then just go to the domain registrar and transfer it to a new host with a new plan. that will get you your site back.

Thanks for all your help.
This is the first question I have asked on The Warrior Forum and I am overwhelmed by your genorousity - thank you.

The guy who commissioned the site is actually a very succesful Jeweller who is trying to break into selling on-line. With 25 years experince in business I assume he's sorted out the contract issue before he went ahead. Certainly the images would have been supplied by him.

Regardless of rights and wrongs, I was guessing that cutting his losses and restarting would be cheaper and less hassle. You all seem to be of the same opinion so thanks again

I forget the actual terminology but the gist is that the owner of a site (even if he knows nothing else about it) should set themselves up with the top level security (password control) and then authorize others at a lower level.

I read that tidbit of information as I was looking for a developer. It was just one of those things recommended for general protection. Now I see a live example.

Good Luck,
Pat

I feel for your buddy. But live and learn. A word to the wise. Register your own domain. I agree. At this point all he can do is scrape the site, find another web designer, get a new domain, and hit the ground running. Don't let a little hiccup get in the way. Wish you and him the best.

You leave a lot of unanswered questions. 'Not performing' doesn't really describe anything.

And forget the screen scraping. Yes, you can get the generated HTML. It's highly likely that those pages were generated by a script of some sort. Grabbing the end result is a waste of time.

Did your friend register the domain himself (using namecheap, godaddy, or a similar kind of service)?
Or did the designer register the domain on your friend's behalf?

My other question would be: does your friend pay any hosting or maintenance fees to the designer - Or were hosting/other fees included in the 6k payment? If so, for what time period.. damn, it's all a matter of the contract. Every other thing is just pure speculation.

That was a bad experience. One lesson learned the hard way. Always work on a clear cut contract especially with that kind of money involved.

I have had a look at that website. Basically, it is a total disaster from an SEO point of view. Some of the reasons had already been mentioned by MAR. There are also only about 8 pages indexed by Google. The individual product names are not even in the title tag of the page. The whole cart is in ASP and there is no search engine friendly html catalog. I strongly suspect that the shopping cart used is just not SEO friendly.

As far as the design is concerned, it looks very dull and gloomy for a site catering o the wedding market. There is no way that the design was worth $6,000.

I would be inclined to start all over again and forget about the design and shopping cart altogether. What I can suggest is that in the meantime, your friend can try some PPC ads to see whether he gets any conversions and if so, what rate. That way, he will have a better idea on whether it is worth keeping the site or not.

Derek

Actually, scraping is not for getting HTML. If you want the HTML of a site, you can do that with one line using WGET.

Scraping is for removing the HTML and isolating the data. Once you have the data, you can recreate the site pretty easily.

My friend, you are in one heck of a pickle...

Who is the domain registered to?
Who owns the hosting acc?

Also, this is why you should draw up a contract and pay in stages...

Mubarak

The domain name your friend registered is with ukfast.co.uk, and he'll have complete control over that.

The domain currently points to redmammoth.com, who are now imagered.co.uk. I imagine they're the web site host, but may actually be the designers too? They won't be compelled to do anything re: the site, as the dispute's between your friend and the designer.

Your friend's first port of call is to take county court action and get a CCJ against the designer to get the money back. It's not without its time, cost and risk, but certainly worthwhile for that amount of money (which I'm equating to be around £4k).

As a developer for years I have got to ask these questions...

1. Who owns the hosting, the designer or your friend ?

2. I notice the website says copyright 2007, any reason why ?

3. What convinced someone to pay $6,000 for that useless site ?

4. Is there a contract involved ?

Your friend could have had a dynamic website built that would have been a great deal better than the url you have posted. ASP is out of date, whoever coded it just used some free script and is not intouch with latest technologies.

Someone mentioned a lawyer, that will not help unless there is a contract involved and your friend has the designers full information and wants to spend money to take it to court.

James

$6gs for that?! wow. Included in that cash I'll assume is SEO and copy development? If he just paid that amount for the design then he's in a pickle as the designers job is done once the final site is signed off on and up. But if he also paid for SEO and copy work then the contract hasn't been fulfilled. When I did design work I made it clear it was design only and nothing else. And I never ever guaranteed any sort of traffic. Just easier that way, and all my clients were happy. And were happily upselled to SEO and consulting work.

I'm overwhelmed by your responses - Thank you all again.

Here is some background info that will answer your questions and comments.

I know a little about HTML and basic SEO and this came up in conversation with my friend The Jeweller a couple of weeks ago.
He asked me to take a look at his site and tell me what I thought. He had owned the site for a couple of years but was about to start paying the designers for SEO.

I looked at the site and was as horrified as you all are.
I spoke to him again the next day and gave him all the reasons why this site would never rank in the SE, no matter how much money he threw at it.
I told him that the only possible way that he would get visitors is through a PPC campaign and that even then he would have to improve the site because no one in their right mind would ever buy from it.

He was very defensive (wouldn't you be if you'd just been told that you had wasted £4,500 sterling?) and took a lot of convincing, however after a lot of talking he came around to my (and all your) point of view.

So the current situation is:
1) The Jeweller is not looking to sue for the design or lack of customers.
2) He just wants to be able to get control of the site so that he can use someone else to develop it. (I don't know who's name the hosting account is in).

Basically:
The Jewelller has a fantastic "bricks and mortar" business that he wants to expand onto the internet.
I have convinced him that it is not going to happen with this site as it stands, but he is reluctant to start afresh due to what he has already spent.

As you have been eo forthcomming I am going to take the libity of asking 3 more questions

1)
A) Keep this site, improve the visitor appeal and go for a PPC campaign?
or
B) Scrap it and start again?

2) The Jeweller would obviously want to target organic search traffic as well as PPC.
He only wants UK customers. so would it be better to host in the UK?
US hosting companies are considerbly cheaper and offer more flexibility and facilities, but I don't know if hosting in the US would adversly affect UK SERPS.

3) The domain was registered in 2007. I know that SE take maturity of a site into account but I don't know whether a poor site being around for a couple of years is something worth bothering about.

I don't have the expertise, inclination or time to build a site of this nature, but I do have more knowledge than The Jweller in web design, online marketing and SEO! (Not difficult! lol) So I wiil be over-seeing any future work and will keep you up to date with any developments.

Thanks again for all you help and support, I am humbled at your genourosity.


Paul

I would definitely go for B, I do not think the site is savable. There are just too many deficiencies. If your friend needs convincing, he can go for some PPCs first. But I am almost certain that he will get a horrible conversion rate.

Derek