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thehunterswife
08-19-2008, 12:04 PM
Hopefully some of you will have some advice on this.

I have a client that had a website for the past few years. When he logged onto his site recently the site was down. Apparently his website designer can not be reached and he isn't sure where to go from here. She had setup his domain name and hosting. He has no idea who the hosting company is that I found it registered under and I am having a hard time contacting them. The site isn't set to expire until March of 2009.

Any suggestions as to where to go from here?

This is also a good reminder to make sure to register your domain name as you and not under your designers name.

KristineS
08-19-2008, 12:13 PM
Definitely a good reminder to make sure your domain name is registered to you and also that you know where it's registered and how to contact that company if there is a problem.

Wish I had some advice for you, but I really don't. Hopefully some of our web gurus can steer you in the right direction.

billbenson
08-19-2008, 01:03 PM
A whois will tell you who owns the domain and where its hosted. If its not your customers domain, I suspect he can't do anything other than abandon the domain. If it is in his name, give Godaddy a call. They take care of moving domains for you but they usually have to be unlocked. If its locked they may still be able to help you, I'm not sure.

thehunterswife
08-19-2008, 01:52 PM
I have to "whois" information. They just aren't responding. Might just have to go with a new name.

billbenson
08-19-2008, 04:51 PM
I gather then it doesn't belong to him...

vangogh
08-19-2008, 07:35 PM
Just guessing, but is the domain registered to the web designer or your client? Also who's listed as the admin on the 'whois' The registrant is technically the owner, but the admin will be the one that has control over the domain.

If your client is listed as both you should be able to contact the registrar and get the logins needed to control the domain. You should also be able to get the hosting login if that is in your client's name. If the domain is under your client's control and the hosting isn't you can point the domain to new nameservers at a new hosting account, though you'll have to rebuild the site.

If the old web design is in control of the domain you have no choice but to get him or her to release it before using it again.

A quick tip for rebuilding the site assuming it's been indexed by search engines.

Do a site:domain.com search on Google. Hopefully that pulls up all the pages for the site. Then click on the cache link below each result. Save that cached page and you'll have all the html for each page. You can probably grab most of the images needed for the site that way too.

You'll have to strip out the Google code around the cached page, and unfortunately you won't get any server side code or even javascript code that way, but you can recover a lot of the code.

thehunterswife
08-19-2008, 08:55 PM
The site was registered under the designers name and now it is under a California based domain name portfolio organization. The client is fine with re-doing his site. It is the ownership of the domain that is his concern at this point. Looks like maybe it was sold to the organization it is under now.

I guess if we can't get ahold of the company we will have to register a new domain.

Thanks for all the responses!

vangogh
08-19-2008, 09:41 PM
You might have to get a new one if the current owner wants to hold onto it. It's a shame the old designer didn't offer it to your client. That would have been the right thing to do.

This is one reason why I always have my clients register their own domains and I suggest anyone looking to start a site register a domain yourself. This isn't the first time I've heard of someone losing their site.

billbenson
08-19-2008, 09:54 PM
Thats cleaver VG.

I suspect as well an email to Google wouldn't hurt. They really don't like fraud and domain name fraud is common. You will never get a live person on the phone, but they take things like this seriously.



A quick tip for rebuilding the site assuming it's been indexed by search engines.

Do a site:domain.com search on Google. Hopefully that pulls up all the pages for the site. Then click on the cache link below each result. Save that cached page and you'll have all the html for each page. You can probably grab most of the images needed for the site that way too.

You'll have to strip out the Google code around the cached page, and unfortunately you won't get any server side code or even javascript code that way, but you can recover a lot of the code.

vangogh
08-20-2008, 12:03 AM
I'm not sure it's technically fraud. It depends on what was stated when the domain was purchased. There's isn't a requirement when someone registers a domain that they're registering it for you and in your name. The terms could be that they're leasing you the domain.

The tip came about from accidentally overwriting a file and needing to get back where it was. Sometimes you can find a file locally in your temp folder too.

The trick with Google cache is you need to do it right away. If Google comes back and caches the page after it's down you have to try another source. You can always try Yahoo's cache or the Internet Archive too.

cbscreative
08-20-2008, 01:40 AM
There are two reasons a web designer would register a domain name under their own control. The honorable reason is to protect the client from all the fraudulent "renewal notices" that come from companies that have nothing to do with the domain registration. In this case, they are protecting the client from falling for scams. The second reason is not so honorable, and I try to warn people about it. If the designer does this strictly to hold the domain name hostage, there is little that can be done. Technically, that designer owns it, and if they are unreachable, this is just as much a scam IMO as those who good designers are trying to protect their clients from.

I don't know which is the case here, and I hope it works out well for your client, but this is an issue that needs to be openly discussed so that it will hopefully serve to inform other business owners to beware of this type of danger.

Fortunately, there is now a way to register domain names "privately" so you don't get so easily hit with fraudulent domain renewal notices. This also means that you don't have to rely on the honorable intentions of your web designer. This may or may not be directly helpful in your current situation, but I believe it will be very helpful to others reading this thread. It could even prevent someone from having this happen in the first place.