cmp-insight

You have a great design, it looks great, your customers love it, and it generates lots of sales and new business for you. So what's wrong with that? Well every things running great until something goes wrong. You suddenly find that the "web design" company that built your site, that great company recommended by a friend, is all of a sudden not so great. They've outgrown you, they are no longer attentive, reacting to your every request, they don't return your calls let alone make the changes you ask for, your relationship spirals downhill and finally you decide enough is enough. No problem you say I'll find another company to take over my site and sort all the problems out, and now you enter a world of pain that you had no idea was locked in from the very beginning. You find that you can't move your site, you don’t own any of the content and even worse you don't even own your website name.

Sounds implausible? "I'm not in that situation", I hear you say. We'll I hate to tell you but if your an SME you are almost certainly in just this scenario. At CMP we are consistently being asked to help companies who are in just this situation. That's why we decided to put this article together to act as a cautionary tale and to give advice on what to do.

You see the problem started when you chose a company that offered so much for such a small price, in fact there was most probably no upfront cost, just a simple affordable monthly fee. It was great; they registered your website name, set up your email, gave you a great design, it was all put together quickly and easily, and they enabled you to make changes whenever you wanted - perfect!

But here's the truth behind what had happened...

Website names (the technical term is URL's, the bit you type into the address bar in your browser) are registered with a number of companies that each keep a list of who owns what website. Each entry consists of a number of fields such as who owns the site who is the administrative contact, and who is the technical contact. Now it's quite reasonable that your web design company is listed as the administrative and technical contact as they need to deal with those issues, however companies will also enter their name as the owner of the site! This is done because it's easy and also because it locks you in as a customer. The consequence of this however is that you do not own your site name, the web design company does. Yes that's right you've paid them to register the name and they've registered it to themselves not you. Now this doesn't cause a problem until you try and move the site. You see the Registrar doesn't know who you are, you’re not listed in their records and as a result they won’t transfer the website and more than likely won’t even talk to you about it - you are a non person! It doesn't matter that your business has been trading out of that name for 10 years; you do not own that site name and have no claim over it. And that's it, that's the end of the story you have two options, go back to the original web design company sue them/grovel like mad, or pick another name and start your brand building all over again!

The second part of the problem is how the website is built technically. A site consists of many different files that bolt together to create the pages you see. A site will typically consist of a hundred or more files. When a website company is creating lots of small sites it has to streamline production of these files to keep costs down to the level that a small business will find attractive. To do this design companies automate the production of these files using another layer of software which is referred to in the industry as a Content Management System" (CMS). Now most of the CMS systems are developed by the individual design companies and are as a result unique to them. So you can't transfer a site built in one CMS to a company running another. In fact, your site does not exist outside of the particular CMS product. You therefore cannot phone the company and ask for a "copy of your site" so that you can use it elsewhere. Now don't get me wrong, I supply and use CMS systems but they have a very specific application that is not relevant to most businesses and I don’t use them unless the customer specifically needs them, I also stress the downsides until I'm blue in the face.

So let’s go right back to the beginning... You've fallen out with your design company and want to move it to another, you phone them and ask for a copy of the files and they simply decline quoting the small print of their contract. You have no option but to start building your site again, every image and piece of text will have to be recreated and re-entered from scratch. By this point you're screaming blue murder and questioning their parentage - I know because I hear you on the end of the phone complaining about them and asking for our help. So what can you do? Well the unpleasant truth is buyer beware. These companies are not doing anything illegal - I personally don't like this sort of behavior and find it immoral, but maybe that's just my hang-up. The real answer is don't enter into this scenario in the first place, ask the right questions before you start and pick the right partner. In today’s world the web is such a major part of your business you want to make sure that you've got someone whose going to look after you for the long term. The second point is you get what you pay for. Web design and construction has got a lot harder not easier! Yes your son or nephew can knock up something easily just like they did at college but that's very different from a commercial site - nowadays customers have much higher expectations and that costs money.

1) Look up your website name registration and check that the Registrants Name field has your personal or company name next to it. If not then get it changed NOW! There are many registrars to check (it depends which one was used by your design company) but a good place to start is here. Type your website name (without the www. at the beginning) into the WHOIS search box and it should show you your entry.

2) Ask your web design company for a copy of your website files. They may not like it as they may think your taking the business away from them but it's quite reasonable for you to have a copy "just as a back-up" and besides, you've paid them for it! If they say they can’t then you know what has happened and where you stand. You can now deal with the problem by acting in advance.