What Do I Do If Someone Registered My Domain Name And I Cannot Access If For My Business

How to Rescue Your Website from the Clutches of a Bad Web Designer or Bad Web Host

How to Move Your Website Without the Cooperation of Your Previous Web Developer or Web Host

How to Rescue Your Website from the Clutches of a Bad Spider web Designer or Bad Web Host

past Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com

From fourth dimension to time, more often than one would recall likely, I get emails from my visitors asking me if information technology is possible to move a website from an errant web designer or a bad web host without the cooperation of that person or company. This may happen considering the web developer or web host has refused to relinquish command of the site when asked to. For example, they may not have given the owner his/her login and password so that the latter tin access the site to update it themselves. This article attempts to address the problem.

The Context of the Question

The people who ask me this question usually have slightly different circumstances. The nearly common scenario is that they have hired a web designer to create and maintain a website for them, and that designer has ignored their requests for the site to be updated. And when they enquire the designer to return the website to them, they meet a wall of silence. Another common scenario is where their spider web host has gone bad in some style (or even missing), and they want to move their site elsewhere.

Earlier you have the steps written here, consider the following:

• Are you sure there is no misunderstanding between you and your designer equally to the scope of his/her duties? Re-read your contract with that person. Does it specify that he/she update your website or does the fee you paid only include the initial design work? Maintenance piece of work (that is, updating of your website) usually involves a monthly (or almanac) fee, over and higher up the monthly (or annual) web hosting fees. If y'all only made a 1-time payment, chances are that it only covers the initial creation of the site.

  (You didn't call back that a pocket-size old fee paid at the outset was going to commit your designer to maintaining your site for the residue of his/her natural life, did you?)

• Exercise non apply this procedure as a means of solving your dispute with your web designers. That is, if you have withheld payment from them for some reason, and they're ignoring y'all because you've non paid upward, this commodity will not solve your problem. Your designers will probably only booty you to court for breach of contract (for failing to pay upwardly).

  Basically, if you lot have a legal dispute with your designers, get help from a lawyer, not from some random website on the Net, even ane with a proper noun like "thesitewizard.com".

Put simply, this article does Non deal with contract disputes and legal remedies. It merely discusses the technical means that you can use to repossess a website that legally and rightfully belongs to yous. And it assumes that you no longer have admission to your web hosting account: that is, y'all cannot log into your account to download a copy of all your files (via FTP or through your spider web host'due south control panel), nor are y'all able to alter your website'south files.

Your Domain Name is the Key to Your Crown Jewels

Ultimately, where technical means are concerned, everything hinges on whether you have control over your domain name.

A domain proper noun is a name like "thesitewizard.com". It is the means by which visitors reach your website. For example, if you blazon "thesitewizard.com" into your web browser right now, you lot will go far at the front folio of this website. When y'all or the person you hired started your site, i of the first things that would have been done is to annals a domain name. This typically involves the payment of a minor annual fee to a company chosen a domain name registrar. In exchange for this fee, yous become the correct to utilise the domain proper name for as long equally you proceed up the annual payments.

The domain name is not the same matter as your website. Information technology's just a name. As explained in my tutorial on How to Make / Create Your Own Website: The Beginner's A-Z Guide, it's like registering a business name for your company in the physical world. Getting a domain name does not automatically get you a website any more than registering a concern name get you shop premises in the brick and mortar world.

What you or your web designers did when your website was created was to adhere your domain name to the prepare of documents they created. When your visitors enter your domain name in their web browser, they come across the set of documents.

It'south the equivalent of putting a sign board with your business proper name exterior your store premises in the physical world. Together, the business organization proper name (as shown on the sign) and your physical shop premises plant your shop. Similarly, in the virtual world of the Internet, your domain name and the documents created past your web developers establish your website.

What happens if, in the concrete earth, you make up one's mind to move your shop to a new building? You basically demand to hire shop premises in the new building, move your goods there, and attach your business name (and sign) to that new store. When you do that, your shop will continue to office, with the aforementioned name, albeit in a new location.

Information technology's the same with a website. What you lot need to exercise is to become a new spider web host, put up your documents on that new spider web host, and signal your domain name there. Once you complete that, you'll have moved your site. The departure is that in the virtual world, your website volition withal have the same web address and you don't need to tell your customers that you lot've moved.

To make sure yous sympathize the concept behind what we'll exist doing later in this commodity, I've depicted the parallels betwixt moving a concrete shop (in the brick and mortar world) and a website (in the digital earth) in the table below.

Step	Physical World	Virtual World (Website)
one	Hire premises in a new location (building).	Get a new web host.
2	Move goods into the new premises.	Transfer documents (web pages) to the new web host.
3	Put upwards a sign board with your business name over the new shop.	Point your domain proper noun to your new web hosting account.

In other words, everything depends on whether you can point your domain name wherever you want. For that to be possible, you volition need the login name and password for your domain registrar. Note that this is not necessarily the aforementioned as the login proper noun and countersign for your web host. (It may be the aforementioned if your web host and registrar are one and the same visitor.)

Without the account proper noun and password for your domain at your registrar, you cannot easily wrest your site away from whoever is currently property information technology hostage. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, everything hinges on your having control of your ain account at the domain registrar.

This is why, in my guide on how to outset a website, I put the registration of a domain proper name as the first step, something to be done by yous, and not something that is done past a web developer you rent (which I simply listing as an option in the tertiary pace). In fact, if you look at that guide, I even listed the signing up for a web host as a separate process to be done yourself, before you get a web designer. When y'all sign upward for these things yourself, you lot'll non but be properly registered equally the owner of your own domain, you'll too be considered past those companies (the domain registrar and the spider web host) as their customer. In such a case, fifty-fifty if you forget your account name and countersign, y'all tin can easily contact those companies to get the information and aid you lot demand.

On the other manus, if you have abdicated all your responsibilities to your web designer, and you lot have an unscrupulous designer, all the contact and ownership information held by your web host and domain proper name registrar may well point to him/her. Your web host and registrar volition, in this instance, not give you any information at all (since you're not their customer; the designer is). Your only recourse in such a case is to negotiate with your designer, if you can withal reach him/her. Or you tin get a lawyer.

For Those Who Signed Up with Their Web Host Themselves

If you are one of the people who actually followed my guide faithfully and merely got a designer later you've personally signed up for a domain proper noun and a web host, and yous're paying the bills directly to your registrar and spider web host, y'all probably don't need to do the things mentioned in this article to regain control of your website.

Even if your spider web developer has changed the countersign for your web hosting account to lock y'all out, you lot tin can go it back. Only contact your web host and explain the state of affairs. You may accept to verify that yous're the existent possessor, but that's usually quite like shooting fish in a barrel to exercise if yous're their client on record and are paying the bills direct to them. Your web host will probably merely change the countersign to a new one of your choosing, and yous'll have regained control of your site.

Of course if your web host and your spider web designer are one and the aforementioned, this won't work for you.

Issues to Think Nearly When Reconstructing Your Ain Website

Since you'll be moving your website to a new web host, you'll probably want to go a copy of your existing website (unless you plan to kickoff from scratch). However, this is trickier than it may announced at first glance.

• Legal Issues: Copyright of Your Old Spider web Design

  One of the things you'll need to exercise if you only want to movement your existing website lock stock and barrel to a new web host is to find out who owns the copyright to your site's design. In that location's no fashion I can help yous ascertain this. It depends on a lot of factors, well-nigh of which are, quite frankly, beyond my competence to determine, since I am not a lawyer.

  For example, it probably depends on the nature of the contract (every bit well every bit what is specified in the contract) between you lot and your spider web designer. It likewise depends on whether your spider web designer was lazy, and used an online site builder belonging to your existing web host, or some website template created by someone else, in which case it'south possible that neither your designer nor you ain the copyright. Meet the article Is It Better to Use an Online Site Builder or a Standalone Web Editor? if you don't know why.

• Technical Event #ane: Script-Driven or Dynamically-Generated Websites

  Another hurdle y'all'll face in moving the website is if your website depends on computer programs that run on your web host's figurer (known as "scripts") to generate a part or the whole of the site's content.

  For instance, if your website has forms of any kind, such equally a shopping cart, a contact class, or a search engine grade, it probably depends on one or more scripts. Blogs are also generated using scripts.

  Since you can't log into your website via FTP (which is a method of transferring files to/from your website) or your web host'southward command panel, you have basically no fashion of getting a copy of those scripts and a copy of whatever data stored in your web host's database system, if whatever. While you may think that it'south a uncomplicated matter to use your web browser to save the pages on your existing website, and then copy those pages to your new web hosting account, you will notice that your new site will non function the same way as it did previously if whatsoever part of your site depended on scripts. For one, the forms that are on your pages will no longer work. Neither volition your shopping cart.

• Technical Consequence #2: Folders, Images, Mode Sheets and JavaScript Files

  The advent of your spider web folio depends on many elements. Its content is contained in the file y'all see in your web browser (called the HTML file in webmaster lingo). The images on the page is kept in split up files on your website. The appearance is kept in yet another file, called a style sail. Your folio may likewise depend on JavaScript files kept in separate locations too. See the article What are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and Perl? Exercise I Need to Learn Them to Create a Website? for a brief overview of these elements if you desire to have a meliorate understanding of how your website works. (Don't worry, it's written for the layperson, so it's in plain English.)

  Every bit such, if y'all use your web browser to save the pages on your existing website, you lot volition need to make certain you save all these boosted files and put them in the correct folders matching the existing folder construction of your website. Otherwise, when you lot transfer your saved pages to your new web host, your website will not wait the same.

  For the newcomer, it may not be easy to figure out how to salve all the necessary elements that brand upward a single spider web folio, and reconstruct it correctly on a new web host. The task is actually doable, and isn't as well difficult. But the problem is that requires a bit of technical knowledge. If you don't already know how to read HTML, and don't sympathize how file paths and URLs work, it'll probably take y'all a lot of fourth dimension to get it correct. And even then, you would still have not solved the other bug mentioned above.

In view of this, you may find that information technology is easier to just redesign your website from scratch on your new web host. You may all the same want to save the pages on your existing website using your spider web browser, then that you can reuse the words and/or pictures that were at that place (provided yous own the copyright to those).

For those who are wondering how to salve a copy of your existing website when you have no access to your current web host, just become to each page on your site in your web browser, click "File" from your browser'due south menu bar, followed by "Save" or "Salve As..." in the drop downward carte du jour that appears. To save images, correct click the image, and click the "Relieve image..." (or equivalent) item in the carte du jour that pops up. Equally mentioned above, this doesn't really save everything, and the saved web page will not look the same every bit that on your current site. Just at least, hopefully, you'll accept a copy of some of your content and images.

Once you have done the above, move on to the side by side department.

Steps to Take to Regain Command of Your Website

To reiterate, in case y'all skipped the in a higher place explanation on the importance of having command of your domain name, make sure y'all have the account user name and countersign of your domain name registrar earlier you practise the following steps. There's no point conveying out whatsoever of the steps below if you cannot log into your domain registrar. If you don't even know what a domain proper noun registrar is, or you don't know which registrar y'all used to become a domain name, chances are stiff that yous won't know your user name and countersign either. In such a case, you won't exist able to do utilize the steps below to get your site back.

1. Get a New Web Host

   Since you want to extricate your website from your current designer or from your existing web host, you'll need to sign up with a new web host. You lot can find some in my list of commercial spider web hosts.

2. Bespeak Your Domain to Your New Web Host

   In one case your new web hosting business relationship is prepare, you lot'll need to make your domain name redirect to that new location. Please read my article How to Bespeak a Domain Name to Your Website for the steps to take to accomplish this. You will need to be able to log into your domain registrar's account to practise this.

   This is the key step that wrests your website out from under your old spider web designer'south or web host's control. Once you practise this, your old site will no longer be attainable to yous using a web browser. So if you want a copy of your sometime website's pages, brand sure you save them before you lot take this pace.

3. Redesign and Republish Your Website

   Next, you'll need to redesign your website and publish it to your new spider web host. Tutorials on how to use various figurer programs to do this are listed beneath. You but need to follow one of these tutorial series, not all of them. For case, if you want to use Dreamweaver CS5 to create your site, just follow the Dreamweaver CS5 tutorial.

   • Expression Web Tutorial — Expression Web is a costless web editor from Microsoft. It works on Windows.
   • BlueGriffon Tutorial — BlueGriffon is a free (and open source) web editor. It works on Windows, macOS and Linux.
   • Dreamweaver CS6 Tutorial — Dreamweaver is a commercial web editor.
   • Dreamweaver CS5.v Tutorial — Dreamweaver CS5.5 is an older version of Dreamweaver.
   • Dreamweaver CS5 Tutorial — Dreamweaver CS5 is an quondam version of Dreamweaver.
   • Dreamweaver CS4 Tutorial — Dreamweaver CS4 is an old version of Dreamweaver.
   • Dreamweaver CS3 Tutorial — Dreamweaver CS3 is an old version of Dreamweaver.
   • KompoZer Tutorial — KompoZer is a gratis (and open source) web editor.
   • Nvu Tutorial — Nvu is an onetime version of KompoZer (too free and open source).
   • How to Fix a WordPress Weblog — for those who adopt to apply blogging software.

   Alternatively, you lot tin can also hire some other web designer (hopefully, an honest one this time) to practise the redesign.

Preventive Measures to Have When Creating a Website

In a way, if you're reading this article considering yous face up the problem addressed here, this department is probably redundant, since experience has undoubtedly left y'all wiser. However, for the benefit of those who are reading this commodity just out of curiosity (and who did not accept to bargain with this nasty bit of business), let me collect together a few important things to do when starting out a website.

• Get Your Domain Proper noun Yourself

  Even if you don't programme to design your website yourself, you should at least register the domain name for your website yourself. I know some people'southward minds go blank whenever they have to do anything related to the estimator, even if it is a very simple thing. But if you don't make an effort to learn to practise even this very bones task, then yous may end up being the sucker that everyone takes advantage of.

  Your domain name is i of the almost important things you demand to take command of when you start your website. With command over it, even if your web host cheats you, or even if your web designer tries to block you from updating your website, you can easily just move your website elsewhere. Without command over information technology, your but hope is to get a lawyer. The lawyer road takes a lot of fourth dimension to resolve, non to mention money, and in that time, y'all'll lose the sales you might accept gained from your website.

  Every bit you can come across from my guide on How to Annals Your Own Domain Name, information technology'southward actually an like shooting fish in a barrel task to get a domain yourself. It's just like buying something on the Internet. In fact, it is ownership something on the Internet, except that you won't go physical goods shipped to y'all. What y'all become is the right to use a proper noun for your website, and to point that name to any location on the Internet whatsoever time you want.

• Do Not Give Your Password to Your Account at the Domain Registrar to Anyone

  The password that you create when you pay for a domain name should non be given to anyone. And that includes a web designer yous rent to create your site for y'all. Giving that password to someone is like giving them a blank cheque ("bank check" in U.s. English). It would nullify whatever benefit you gained from registering your domain name yourself, since with the password, that person can but transfer the ownership of your domain proper name to anyone he/she pleases.

  What if the designer needs to betoken the domain name to the website that he has designed for you lot? If you were to ask me, I would suggest that you signal the domain yourself using my guide. Withal, I realise that for those who are already baulking ("balking") at the idea of buying the domain proper name themselves, this may tip them over the brink. If you really recall it'south too difficult, get your web designer to do it in your presence (afterwards you log into your registrar's account yourself). Later on, when you're back at your own computer, change your password at the registrar'southward site as a only-in-case measure, later on verifying that aught in your registrar's business relationship has changed (including email address, business or domicile address, name, domain ownership, etc).

  Yeah, I know. It sounds paranoid. If you think about it, password security measures regularly advocated by security pundits normally audio over the top. Some of them even sound like they were taken from a Hollywood spy thriller. That is, until you notice that your account is compromised and your crown jewels stolen.

• What if Your Registrar is the Same as Your Spider web Host?

  If you bought spider web hosting from your registrar, and so it's possible that the same password controls both your domain name and your web hosting account. You may perhaps be thinking that in such an event, yous'll accept no choice but to give your web designer the password since if yous don't, he/she won't be able to create your website. Non true.

  The way to solve this is to create a separate FTP account for your spider web developer (ask your web host how you can do this). Give this FTP account a unlike password, and restrict the access for this account to only the website expanse. This allows your spider web designer the power to publish your website without, at the same fourth dimension, also giving him carte blanche to practise anything he wants to the rest of your account.

  (Note that if you practise this, and your website needs a database, y'all may have to create information technology for your programmer using your website'south control panel. Merely y'all can usually ask your web host for help for this. It's a very easy task.)

• Practice Yous Need to Gear up a Spider web Hosting Account Yourself?

  In an ideal world (in my opinion), webmasters will gear up upwardly their sites exactly as I described in my guide on How to Prepare / Create a Website, that is, they go the domain names themselves, sign up for a web hosting business relationship themselves, and only engage the web designer (if they don't want to work on the site themselves) at the design phase.

  However, I know that this is not a very realistic expectation: if y'all are the owner of a visitor and are not very computer-savvy, you may not desire to waste a lot of time dealing with all the nitty gritty of setting up a website, especially if the website is just a modest role of your overall concern. You lot may prefer to simply rent someone to take care of that end of things, and concentrate on your real work. If you decide this, please understand that the number of options available to y'all when you confront problems with your spider web designer is proportional to the extent of your involvement at the initial stages of the cosmos of your site. The tabular array below summarises this:

  Your Initial Involvement With Your Site	Your Options In The Consequence Of A Problem With Your Web Developer
  You did the following yourself: Signed upwardly for a domain name yourself and retain control of it. Signed up with a spider web host yourself and pay the bills direct to them. Created a separate FTP account with a different countersign for your spider web designer so that he/she can publish your site.	Terminate your web designer's access to your website by deleting his FTP account. This is quick and painless and solves the problem instantly. With this method, you don't ever lose control of your site. Although the options below are also available to you, there's no need to even consider them.
  Yous did the following yourself: Signed upwardly for a domain proper name yourself and retain control of it. Signed up with a web host yourself and pay the bills direct to them.	Simply get the spider web host to reset the password, and you'll have complete control of your website over again. (Encounter box above.) In that location's no need to move to a new web host, unless the web host was the culprit that acquired the problem in the commencement place. This process is generally faster than whatsoever of the other processes listed below. All the options below are also available to yous.
  You lot did the post-obit yourself: Signed up for a domain name yourself and retain control of information technology.	If you lot can't get your web host to co-operate, you however have the ability to bespeak your domain name to a new web host and kickoff again from there. (Encounter procedure above.) While this is a last resort measure out, since it'south rather like a "nuke" option obliterating your erstwhile website, at least y'all have this ability to start again with the aforementioned web address. The option below is as well available to yous.
  You did goose egg. Your web designer did everything for you.	Pray. (And attempt to negotiate with your designer and/or get a lawyer.)

Moving Your Website Without the Cooperation of Your Previous Web Designer or Web Host

Information technology'southward sad that I actually have to write such an commodity, where it'southward necessary for someone to need to rescue their site abroad from the clutches of a bad web designer or spider web host. In any case, for those who have control of their own domain, this method of directing your domain proper noun elsewhere is an effective solution to the problem.

Copyright © 2010-2021 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
Go more gratis tips and manufactures like this, on spider web design, promotion, revenue and scripting, from https://www.thesitewizard.com/.

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