Ask a Website Design Company ^BETA

5 May 2009
Hi George,

I find that I am having difficulty writing this reply, as I am desperately reaching for my Soap Box... fortunately I can not reach it so I will spare you my tirade on the somewhat less than reputable practices of many, "web developers".

Suffice it to say that first and foremost diligently research any web development company you may plan on working with, make sure they develop toward current web standards, see how long they have been in business and feel free to ask them the very question you have posted here. Ask if they have a plan of action in the event of economic strife. Also, try to make sure they are not selling you some prefab system that they are adding your design to. Honest and talented developers will typically cost a little more, but they code with care and their skill set is often pretty broad.

I would also recommend that you ask questions about your hosting options. Often times you will find that development companies use co-located servers. Co-located servers are basically servers that are, "rented" from a hosting company. This reduces overhead for developers and allows developers to remain competitive in the marketplace.

To help ensure your website does not disappear in the unfortunate circumstance that your development company does go, "bust", make sure that the company, or developer you have develop your website has a hosting option available with a well established hosting company such as Via Verio, and have your website hosted on an account that you have all access to. In the case of Via Verio they have many different hosting options with excellent customer service.

Always make sure that there are hosting options available to you that don't lock you in to the development company's primary server and that the account is in your name; in the event that the development company does go out of business, you can simply keep working away, business as usual.

Beyond that, before working with your development company, make sure that a copy of your website, database, development and final graphics will be made available to you upon request. If the answer is no, question their integrity. Some companies may want to charge you extra for a copy of your website... strange really, you have already paid for it once, so please don't allow yourself to be charged again.

Those are my suggestions regarding web developers... as for SEO companies, I am not truly qualified to answer that question as I have not yet found a company that I would recommend.

I hope this helps,
Very best regard.

Mark Cloyd
Mark Cloyd Designs

5 May 2009
In most cases for seo work you're not insured.

Its a service and tough to define unless you have an SLA built into contract.

7 May 2009
The simple answer to this is no I'm afraid.

I have a client who found herself in a similar position, one day one of her customers said to her "Did you know your website's not working?"

Sure enough, the site had gone, the designer's phone went unanswered.

I was happy to step in, and did as I always do:

1) I provided a copy of the site on CD for her to keep in the safe

2) I provided all hosting FTP details to ensure she had full access to hosting

3) I registered a new domain-name in her name, ensuring again that she has full control


Now, if I go bust (and nobody in business can guarantee that they won't) it's a simple matter for her to maintain her website and keep it up and running.

Regards

Charles
Clear as Crystal Web Design

25 May 2009
Unfortunately not, but this is true of any company that you hire for any other service.

What you can agree with your designer is partial payments at key milestones such as, a deposit to instruct to do the work, on prototype design completion, 30% paid, on user acceptance testing 50% paid, site go-live, 100% paid.

Other alternatives are to use an Escrow service, if you're not already familiar with these, Escrow is a service whereby you agree what you want as part of the project, you pay the funds to a 3rd Party "Escrow" provider, who hold the funds for you until the project is completed. On completion, you tell the Escrow company that you're happy for the funds to be released, and the Escrow provider then makes the payment for the amount to the designer.

As others have suggested, research your web designer beforehand, build up a good relationship with them in the initial meetings, if things don't feel right, be cautious and weigh up the risks involved. If there's anything that a few simple questions could answer then ask them. I'm often asked how business is going at the moment, so you could always start with this, and then gently dig around the subject until you're confident you can say whether or not the designer is reliable or not.

I hope this helps,

Kurt Farrar
Small Business IT Consultant
MyDigitalMedia

26 May 2009
I completely agree with getting a copy of your website (and yes, why should you pay for it twice!) If the company goes, the hosting vanishes with the company etc then at least you have a copy of the site to re-upload somewhere else.

Another thing to bear in mind is ensuring your domain name is registered in YOUR name not the company building your website. There are companies out there who will register your domain in their name the either charge a huge amount or out-right refuse to transfer it to you. Several of our customers have fallen prey to this (not from us!) and although there are ways round it they can be costly and timely.

If you have your domain and your site then no one can hold you to ransome or vanish with your hard earnerd website!

27 May 2009
It is less about insurance and more about ownership.

It is your website so keep a copy. You can get your own hosting and be up and running in minutes if the design or seo co fails.

When you say SEO I guess you mean optimisation to your content and structure. That being the case you should have the FTP details of your website and keep a copy on your machine even if they are hosting your site.

CD copies are OK but obviously your website could be live for months / years and will have changes so best to download your own copy after each update.

Good luck

Kev

28 May 2009
Hi George,

The short answer to your question is that you are NOT insured.

So , that being said what can you do? As has been said previously you need to ask some questions of you web development company.

I would agree with the majority of what has been said previously and add that having a good CMS will put you more in the driving seat .

A good website is not an event ...its a process.

I hope this helps
Good luck

Richard Norris
CEO
SiteZero Internet

3 June 2009
Short answer, no.

If the company goes bust the tax man will try and recover any money owed first and if anything is left it goes to employees.

You will find you are best off sticking with a company with a good credit rating as it shows the company is not going to go bust along with your money.

This pretty much applies to any business, not just web design companies.

11 June 2009
I'm not sure if this is just a hypothetical or if this is really happening to you, but I'll answer it like it's the latter.

This is definitely a gray area, but there may also be some things you hadn't considered.

First I want to say (and I'm not just saying this because I'm a freelancer) that you could have been better off going with a reputable freelancer. Let's face it, there are flakes in every category of this business;

Firms, Freelancers and Clients can all be equally flaky. The 3 most important ways to surround yourself with legitimate professionals are as follows:

Good Communication, Portfolio and References and you need to be a good judge. Most of my clients become ongoing clients and they all have horror stories from these so called professional firms or companies. Now I'm not saying that you can't kind a good firm.

But, if you can find a good freelancer you're likely to find better prices, better quality and a better experience because they'll be more loyal and 1 on 1. I'd want to know first if you did a contract and if not, have you saved all your emails that contain agreements between the 2 of you, because I think the question that you should be asking is not am I insured, but could I take them to small claims court?

Collect your data that supports you and present it to them (don't be rude) if the following doesn't work, but get to the point;

"It's unfortunate that you're going out of business and I'm sorry to hear it, but the work will still need to be finished or I'll need to be refunded. Thank You"

Now if there is no response or the response is rude or they say no, then you're next response should be:

"I understand that you're going through rough financial times right now, but so am I. Perhaps we can work out a payment plan for you to refund me? I can give you 3 months and if I haven't received a full refund or if we haven't worked out payments in that time I'll have no choice, but to turn it over to the courts.

I have a signed contract /or/ I have enough supporting emails to prove my case (make it sound as though you'll for sure win the case and that really it'll just be inconvenient for the both of you and supply your evidence), you'll of course need to pay for a plane ticket as well as other fees on top of the refund. It will cost us both more time and money so I'd rather not go this route. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed? Thank You"

Don't ever be rude and try to sound as least threatening as possible you'll get better results this way, also it'll work to your advantage if you're calm and cordial the whole time especially if they become angry. If it comes down to it, really do take it to court, I don't see why you wouldn't win? I'm assuming you paid $500 - $1,000+?

Now, if this is a real company with an office maybe they can be going out of business (which doesn't give them the legal right to screw people over), but if this is a virtual company or freelancers then they're full of it and this is just their scam.

One of my new clients said the same thing happened to him, they barely did any work then went all flaky and said they were "going out of business"? When he came to me to finish up the site I had him give me the URL to their website (because I take care of my clients) and there they still were in operation and I found no indication that they had actual offices?

Now, to be honest I can't really understand someone justifying even leasing an office in this business, it seems a little overkill, there may be some good reasons, but I don't see the benefit; I have a whole arsenal of professionals at my disposal and they all work from home. So unless they really do have offices they're completely full of it, you just don't go out of business in this business, there's no overhead!

Research Research Research, get your Materials Together.

Good Luck!

Thanks, Bryan

1 July 2009
Hello George,

It depends how you've paid them and what sort of contract you have signed with the company.

If you paid them with a credit card for example, you may be able to get your money back (like with most purchases), however this may not be the case with other payment methods.

If the company goes bankrupt then you may be able to submit a claim but the chances of getting all your money back are slim at best.

I would suggest looking at this page from the Consumer Direct website (if you're from the UK) as this will give you a little more information on the subject:

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/after_you_buy/know-your-rights/companyinadm/

Regards,

Sam

5 August 2009
No your not, but you can take steps to protect yourself.
When the website is completed make sure you:

1. Get a copy of the complete site on CD.

2. Have your domain name registered in your name.

3. If you have a CMS or ecommerce site, make regular back ups of the database. (You should do this regularly to protect your shops data anyway)

4. Limit your hosting contracts to just 1 year.

Do these basic things and you will limit your losses and be get your site back online faster.

Cheers

Peter Day
PDA Design