What happens if your web designer disappears?

It happens more often than anybody admits. Someone gets a real job, the side business quietly stops, or an email goes unanswered for weeks. The site keeps running, which is why most people do not find out until they need something changed.

What happens if your web designer disappears?

It depends entirely on whose name things are in, and almost not at all on how well you got on. If the accounts are yours, this is an inconvenience and you hire somebody else. If they are not, you are waiting on a person who has stopped replying. You can find out which today.

The site does not vanish the day they do. It keeps serving until something needs paying or renewing, and that is the deadline that matters. Most people get months of warning they never use, because nothing looks wrong yet.

How do you tell whether you are exposed right now?

Run six checks. Each is a plain yes or no, and you can do the lot in about fifteen minutes without asking the person who built the site. A no does not mean you have been cheated. It means you have found the thing worth sorting while everyone is still on speaking terms.

• Is the domain in your name or your business name? Check a public WHOIS search, or auDA for a .au
• Can you log in to the registrar right now, without asking anybody for the password?
• Can you log in to the hosting, and have you seen an invoice with your name on it?
• Do you know where the code lives, and could somebody else get a copy of it tomorrow?
• Is there a backup, does anyone know when it last ran, and has it ever been restored?
• Which email gets the renewal notices? If you have never had one, that address is not yours

The renewal question is the sharpest of the six. Whoever gets those emails is the person who finds out the domain is about to expire, and if that is not you, nothing else on the list protects you from the date.

If any of those turned up an answer you did not expect, the longer explanation of what each of these things actually is sits in who owns your website.

What do you do first if it has already happened?

Deal with the domain before anything else, because it is the only part with a clock on it. Everything else can wait a fortnight without getting worse. A domain that lapses can be bought by somebody else, and then it is not a dispute any more, it is gone.

• Find the domain expiry date on a WHOIS lookup first. That date is your real deadline
• Try to log in to the registrar. If you get in, change the contact email to yours and turn on auto-renew
• Contact the registrar directly if you cannot get in. They deal with this constantly
• Save a copy of the live site. A free site downloader grabs the pages and images
• Gather your proof: invoices, emails, anything showing you paid for the work
• Recover your Google Business Profile if it was set up for you. That is separate from the site and has its own process

Send one clear written request before you assume the worst. People go quiet for ordinary reasons, illness and burnout among them, and a short email asking for the logins often gets them handed over.

What can you get back, and what is gone for good?

Most of it is recoverable and one part often is not. The live site, your content, the hosting and your Google listing can almost always be sorted out. The source code, if it only ever existed on somebody else’s computer, is the part that is genuinely gone.

Recoverable, usually: the site as visitors see it, because it is public and can be copied. Anything you supplied. Hosting, since a site moves in a day or two once you have the files. Your Google Business Profile, through Google’s own recovery process.

Not recoverable, honestly: source code that lived on one machine with no repository anywhere. Custom features nobody wrote down. The editable originals of designed artwork. Email history, if the mailbox died with the hosting. Losing the code does not mean losing the site, it means the next person rebuilds rather than edits.

A copied site goes back online in a day. A rebuilt one takes weeks. Knowing which you are facing is the difference between an annoying fortnight and a real bill.

Can you get a domain back if they will not release it?

Sometimes, and it is slow. For a .au there is a complaints process through auDA, and .au rules require the registrant to have a genuine connection to the name, which usually favours the business it is named after. It is not a same-week fix, and it is not guaranteed.

Start with the registrar rather than a lawyer. They handle disputed transfers routinely and it costs nothing to ask. Have your evidence ready: your ABN, invoices, and anything in writing where the domain was called yours.

If the expiry date is close and you are getting nowhere, take advice early. Once a domain drops and somebody else registers it, the argument stops being about ownership and becomes a negotiation with a stranger.

How do you stop it happening again?

Own the accounts yourself and get the arrangement in writing. The one question worth asking anyone you hire is what happens if they stop trading, and a straight answer to that tells you more about how the relationship will go than any portfolio does.

• Register the domain yourself, in your business name, on your card, and add your designer as a helper
• Ask what happens if they stop trading, and get that answer in writing rather than in conversation
• Put the domain renewal in your calendar, so the date is never a surprise

How is Kindred set up so this is not a problem?

Everything goes in your name from the start. The domain, hosting, email and analytics are set up on your own accounts with your own card, and I get added as a helper. If I disappeared tomorrow you would still hold every login, and you would be hiring a replacement rather than chasing me.

If you would rather not have another login, I can hold the domain and hosting while you are on a monthly plan. The agreement says in writing that both are yours, that I move them into your name free whenever you ask, and that holding them is never a reason you cannot go.

Every monthly plan includes weekly backups. There is no lock-in, no notice period and no exit fee, and if you leave I will help you move the lot for free. That is in the terms rather than said out loud, because a promise you cannot point at later is not worth much.