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Do You Really Own Your Website?

How to make sure that you have enough control in case things go wrong.

You have a great design, it looks great, your customers love it, and it generates lots of sales and new business for you. So whats 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. Theyve outgrown you, they are no longer attentive, reacting to your every request, they dont 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 Ill 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 cant move your site, you dont own any of the content and even worse you dont even own your website name.

Sounds implausible? "Im not in that situation", I hear you say. Well 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. Thats 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 heres the truth behind what had happened...

Website names (the technical term is URLs, 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 its 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 its 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 thats right youve paid them to register the name and theyve registered it to themselves not you. Now this doesnt cause a problem until you try and move the site. You see the Registrar doesnt know who you are, youre not listed in their records and as a result they wont transfer the website and more than likely wont even talk to you about it - you are a non person! It doesnt 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 thats it, thats 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 cant 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 dont 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 dont use them unless the customer specifically needs them, I also stress the downsides until Im blue in the face.

So lets go right back to the beginning... Youve 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 youre 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 dont like this sort of behavior and find it immoral, but maybe thats just my hang-up. The real answer is dont enter into this scenario in the first place, ask the right questions before you start and pick the right partner. In todays world the web is such a major part of your business you want to make sure that youve 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 thats very different from a commercial site - nowadays customers have much higher expectations and that costs money.

Now having filled you with anxiety heres what you can do:

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 its quite reasonable for you to have a copy "just as a back-up" and besides, youve paid them for it! If they say they cant then you know what has happened and where you stand. You can now deal with the problem by acting in advance.

3) Finally, if you do find that youre in the nightmare scenario then find a new web company to work with before you fall out with your incumbent - wed be happy to take your call.

Alan Atterbury
Managing Director
© Cross Media Publishing

Biography
Alan Atterbury has a unique blend of technology, business and sales skills gained from a career covering engineering, research, publishing and technology. Cross Media Publishing was formed in 1996 at the start of the internet and electronic media revolution and has built a customer base consisting of publishers, financial institutions and corporates as well as fledgling businesses and SMEs.

CMP Technology was formed as a result of customers asking for professional computer management services but has more recently grown to include IP based telephony and security systems.

CMP Insight was started to provide business consultancy services including project management and business development.

www.cmp-insight.com
www.cmp-online.com
www.cmp-technology.com

Tel : 01932 888864
CMP Insight, Cross Media Publishing and CMP Technology are divisions of FTS services Ltd. Company registration number 3156718 Registered address: 354 London Road, Mitcham, Surrey, UK.

Alan Atterbury

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