Are You In Control Of Your Web Project?
Before going forward with any kind of web site creation, expansion or renovation, businesses should always understand the details of a web design or web hosting contract. Without this kind of due diligence, planners can get some very unpleasant surprises along the way.
One of the biggest examples of this relates to the use of domains that provide Internet locations for web sites. Domains are the real estate of the Internet, and just like in physical real estate, there’s a lot of value floating around individual domains, domain names and addresses.
The Hosting and Domain Name Agreement
In general, a company has a hosting contract for a web site which governs where the web site data is kept, and how it is uploaded for end-users. Then there’s a separate contract for the domain name, for the “address” of the web site.
Companies can administrate these details in-house, or farm them out to a third party hosting or design service. But when a company loses control of these vital resources, headaches can happen.
Holding a Domain Name Hostage
One of the biggest problems for client companies comes up if they want to change the domain name or location of the site later in the process, or when they need to review their domain name. Many domain names have to be renewed an ongoing basis, or they will be lost. So when client companies go to check on domain name status, they may find that those domain names have been bought, not by their companies, but by the hosting company. And this is where things get tricky.
Some hosting companies actually have strings attached to their hosting and design agreements. They may not agree to release the domain name to the company, or to give the company access to manage it. This may lead to the loss of the domain name, and the client company may have to go shopping for another.
WebSubstance Policy
At WebSubstance, we feel that this kind of “hostage-taking” is really unprofessional and an improper relationship between the design and hosting firm and its clients. Instead of giving our clients extra work, we help them, by joint-managing the hosting and domain name policies. But we also leave the keys on the table for you — at any time, our clients can take control of these agreements to switch them to other providers or do anything else that they want.
Here, you’ll never have to worry about getting taken advantage of with a bait and switch contract or any other kinds of situations where you don’t have full access to the domain name or project. This is a basic and essential part of any good contract between the design and hosting firm and client company, so when you’re in the market for Web services, don’t forget to check on how you’ll have access to your domain name and other aspects of the project moving forward.
Contact us now for your next project!
