Here’s a word of warning from a WordPress developer. If your current developer suggests you sign up for their hosting plan say no!
A lot of developers and agencies offer hosting plans for a slice of that delicious recurring revenue, it sounds like a great deal, fully managed hosting, and 99% of the time it will work out well, until there is an issue, that’s when the SHTF.
I don’t offer hosting myself for that 1% of grief is just not worth the few quid I could earn each month.
You Are Giving Away Control Of Your Site.
Here’s the big take away from this blog post, once you pass your hosting over to your developer your lose control over your website.
If you register your domain through your developers hosting account that’s even worse they have complete control over our website, domain name, email. This is a terrible place to be in.
It’s Probably Going To Be Okay.
I’m going to show you the terrible 1% in the rest of this post, most agencies and developer are legit and won’t hold you to ransom, what I’m suggesting is you always keep complete control over your website and domain name.
Access To Your Site Can Be Revoked.
If you give control over your website to your developer and have them host your site the upside is there are no hosting issues to worry about, the downside is access to your site can be revoked and your site taken offline.
Failure to pay bills (by you and your developer to their hosting provider), a break down in your client / service provider relationship, illness or price rises are just some reasons that you may fall out with your developer and cause your site to be taken offline.
Your developer can hold you to ransom, stop any future development you need and tank your website. The worst thing I have seen is sites taken offline due to issues between developers and clients.
I’ve Seen The Client Developer Relationship Go Wrong So Many Times
I’ve worked with hundreds of clients and (fingers crossed) most of my relationships have been great. But I’ve seen that relationship break down from my side and the clients a number of times. If that relationship breaks down you need to extract your site.
Scope creap, difficult clients and lack of time can sour the relationship from developer to client.
Increasing fees, poor quality work and lack of communication or availability can spoil the client to developer relationship.
These working relationships can and will end, be aware of that and have 100% control over your site.
I’ve seen developer dump their now ex-clients a zip file and send them on their way with no support to restore that to another hosting provider.
It’s Not Hard To Host A Website
With modern hosting companies it’s not that hard to host a website anymore, the tech support from that firm will help you to keep your site online.
If that is still to much you can get your own hosting and registration then …
Pay Your Developer To Manage Your Site On Your Hosting
What’s the solution to this problem, setup your own hosting and registration of your domain name, then pay your developer to mange that hosting on your behalf. It’s not a problem for us developers to work on someone’s hosting account.
If your developer tells you it is a problem, be wary.
Case Study: The Developer Became Sick
This blog post has been prompted by a real life issue one of my clients is seeing. The old developer has become seriously ill and was unable to provide their services. The huge issue is that the client also hosts their website with that developer. We are struggling with things like creating sub domains and managing hosting settings.
The client had to contact the hosting company, provide proof they own the site and then move the site to their own hosting.
It’s a huge pain so use this warning to host your own site on an account you control.
Wrap Up
Nothing to sell here, I don’t have a hosting package to flog, oh wait, if you need help migrating away from your developer to your own hosting account please get in touch I have a fixed price package.
Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash