Useful Stuff

Always stay in touch with your Web Developer

This is why it is always best to occasionally check your Web Developer is still alive or contactable, especially if you have entrusted them with everything to do with your online presence.

Recently I was nominated to take on the redesign of the local Montessori preschool. Montessori is a great education style aimed at empowering children to think for themselves and learn through play. Some people don’t like it, but are usually the ones who have never tried it. Anyway… that aside…

The main problem they (the Montessori school) had was that a couple of people had managed the Website – it is actually a WordPress site funnily enough – and over time had taken up other ventures or had best intentions of helping out, but eventually lost focus. So what they had was hosting with one provider, a database sitting in someone’s shared hosting account with a bunch of others using the same login credentials, and a domain name in someone elses name who they had no idea who it was.

So, if I was to provide any advice or insight today, it would be

  1. Make sure your domain name is registered in your name and you have login details, unless there is an agreement between you and the web developer or hosting company due to getting free domain name registration, therefore there may be a period of which they hold the domain name in their name
  2. Upon completion of work, get all login details, these will be for domain name, FTP (file transfer protocol access to Website files) and most importantly, get any content management system login details and make sure you have some sort of admin access or enough to remove unnecessary accounts. At times developers use test logins with not that string passwords and could leave you open to unauthorised entry
  3. If in doubt, go to www.who.is and do a lookup on your domain name, often this is the first place to start if you are completely in the dark.

If you are experiencing any of the above, seek medical advice or contact me and I can help 🙂

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