Golden words and absolutely right. As I write this I am doing a screenshare trying to teach the client how to back up his computer and I really don’t want to become an IT support service. I remember one client who claimed he had trouble accessing Netflix after I had changed something on his site and he wanted me to fix it.
One of the most helpful tools to capture an entire webpage and save in various formats. You can even add Text…
But you can do this from Mac already. Just save as PDF from your browser file menu. You can then open the PDF in Mac’s preview app and use the markup tools to make notes etc. This is part of the blocs web page exported from Safari. I haven’t added any markup or notes, but it’s easily done.
I use SiteSucker.
This is a life saver for me and for some developers I have with the same case as yours @Flashman
Thanks for these suggestions, but I think I didn’t explain this clearly enough. The client’s existing site is brute ugly and was done using Wordpress with an obvious lack of care. I am rebuilding everything from scratch using Blocs, which will include more pages, different text and images. More than likely it will include various flex galleries created in Volt.
The original idea was just to migrate it all to my client server, including the email, so the site stays live while I work on the new one. I have since discovered the other designer will not grant access to cPanel because she is using a personal account for all her clients, so this is not possible. I think it is incredibly amateur for a web designer not to use reseller hosting with individual cPanel logins if they intend to host sites for clients.
First we need to migrate the email, which is now proving problematic because the client cannot even remember the passwords and at times like this I despair… After that we need to wrestle back ownership of the domain, so it is under his control.
Lately I’ve grown frustrated by situations like this where clients are almost entirely reliant on their websites for new business, yet fail to take the most basic measures in contingency planning. It’s like building a house on a cliff edge and not bothering with insurance.
In one instance a woman called me a few months ago wanting help to put her website back online. For unknown reasons the original web designer had vanished, followed soon after by all his client websites. Like many others, she was left with nothing because the designer had registered all the domains, controlled the hosting and maintained the only copies of the work files. Many businesses potentially folded because of this.
I am rebuilding my own website as time permits and I intend to style it in a way that will probably filter out these kind of customers away i.e scare them away. That is a deliberate strategy, because they take up too much time for what they are willing to pay.
Hi @Flashman
I feel sorry for you and at the same time let me share some of my experience.
I have had several cases of clients who have been ripped off by so-called “web designers/agencies”.
These “providers” process as follows:
- they purchase a popular wordpress template licence around 60$ in their name
- they request the client to provide all images and texts
- they badly fill out the template with those images and texts
- rely on Yoast for some SEO
- buy the domain in their name and host the site on a shared server (often the cheapest)
- provide access to Wordpress admin in editor mode only (thus client cannot upgrade Wordpress and extensions when needed
- charge for the domain, the hosting and annual support (which is the support the hosting company actually provide)
- charge for any modification of the site
- once the client wishes to part away they do not provide any migration or sometimes charge an exorbitant price, the client has to re-purchase the licence for the template. Their process is to keep the client captive. However, the client only finds that out when it is too late.
- situations can be even more difficult like the one you are experiencing
So what I have been doing to avoid getting in the type of mess you are currently facing, is to follow a simple checklist before taking up the client as mine.
Checklist:
- who’s the owner of the domain
- obtain the authorisation code for transfer (if yes first step is to transfer the domain right away to the client)
However, if there is already an issue at this stage, well the question is: would the client accept a new domain name (knowing that in the future the client could regain the domain name once the provider does not obviously renew the domain) ?
If the client has the domain in its name and the authorisation code:
- does the client have administrator rights to the wordpress site (allowing to duplicate the site and retrieve all information, i.e images, blog xml, texts, etc…)
- if not can the client obtain those login details
Only once these aspects have been clarified would I make the move and take the client’s project.
If you follow these simple steps, you will no longer have these kind of issues. You may loose some potential clients, but as you have mentioned in the long run these clients cost more than the revenue they could generate for you.
Cheers,
MDS
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A proper contract can yeild the same result with further benefits. 
That checklist sounds like an exact list of how this previous “designer” is likely operating and I noticed all their websites are using the same WP theme.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect in this is that these people do have clients and often quite a large number, who were seemingly happy to pay for these ugly messes. I have to conclude these designers are heavily invested in sales technique, because otherwise it doesn’t add up.
In these cases I have asked the client at the start if they control the domain and either been assured that they did or that the other web designer is very helpful and there won’t be any problems.
I can see now that such assurances are meaningless. Indeed there have been two recent cases where it has been discovered that the original designer sold their business to another company and simply handed over the clients without a word.
Yes a really tight contract would probably help to an extent, but only if it is easily enforceable without creating a lot of arguments that are also stressful.
Most people have no knowledge of website basics and often go with these type of providers because like you write they do more marketing than anything else and sell their work at a cheap price. Well you get what you pay for… but people tend to forget that.
If they can get the authorisation code for the domain transfer that means either they do indeed control it or their current provider is willing to assist.
MDS
In the case of a .co.uk domain no authorisation code is required to move from one registrar to another. Instead you change the IPS tag. In most cases there is no need to change the domain registrar, however it clearly needs to be established if they have that control.
Sometimes I receive enquiries to fix something on a Wordpress site, however I always avoid them, because I don’t know what other possible issues are present or what the client is not telling me. They tell you it just needs a small change, then suddenly you find it’s all broken and the client insists everything was perfect before you logged in.
Was unaware it’s different for the UK. That said, you just need to establish they are in possession of the IPS tag instead of an authorisation code for other extensions.
MDS
The IPS tag can be found by simply checking with any registrar. In the case of my web host it is GURUCLOUD. We just need to establish categorically that they have access to change this and ideally work it out themselves. If they cannot do that it’s already not a great sign.
The internet is not a new thing at this stage and with covid the move towards online activity will only accelerate. I think Seth Godin summed it up accurately in a blog post last year about people who don’t do technology.
Exactly.
It’s a shame the UK does not rely on the authorisation code system, it’s much easier then to know who controls it. For instance, here in Switzerland the code is only valid temporarily. Much more secure in my mind.
MDS
Yes but there is one big plus with the UK system. If you have a registrar that is being difficult you can bypass them and go through Nominet that controls the domains.
This was useful just a couple weeks ago with a client after we found that Strato did not have an option to change the nameservers and were not allowing him to change the IPS Tag. You can also switch from one registrar to another at zero cost without having to renew for another year.
Nominet can also assist in cases where you need to gain control of a domain as this client will need to do.