Change hosts

[Nicky]

I have paid someone an obscene amount of money to build me a website. After a month he showed my oscommerce and told me he had to pay for it!! I now know he lied. This is my first website - and I trusted him to guide me in what was needed.

 

Anyway its been nearly 12 months since he started and now wants more obscene amounts of money to carry on hosting. I need to change hosts. One of the problems I have is that he still has control of the website. I change it about using Admin and also Dreamweaver, but he has basic control. I do not have oscommerce downloaded, and if I take control I know I need this. I've tried downloading on an older computer and failed at getting apache to work - before even getting to oscommerce.

 

I know I can do this but I need some help please in very basic language.

[Guest]

Here goes my best shot ..

 

You have been stuffed like a christmas turkey if he owns the domain name do a 'whois' search to find out.

 

Dependant on how you get your traffic that is not the end of the world though. It only means registering a new name, in your own name, with a decent host.

 

If you can reach your admin tools all you have to do is a backup to local drive of your site and you should be able to upload it to new space with a new service provider.

 

There is nothing to stop you trying this to make sure it works OK before letting your current provider know he is getting the order of the boot btw.

[winstanley_john]

Do you have the FTP details for the site?

[Nicky]

Hi - thanks for replying

 

I really need to keep my domain name as I have just done 3 months of heavy advertising on it, and also I'm quite high on the search engines. Unfortunately the he bought the domain name as part of the website design - although I paid for it!

 

I have backed up the website on the no compression pure sql, and also download but I don't think the download worked as its just a folder on my desktop and it needs a program to open with.

[Nicky]

What FTP details do you need?

[AlanR]

You might be able to transfer the domain name out from underneath him without him knowing if your email address is the administrative contact for the domain.

 

If it's not I'd play him along promising further payment but holding back till he changes the admin contact, then wham, he's outta here.

 

Just say that you want things tidied up.

 

(To get the entire site you just need the ftp user name and password)

[Guest]

Nicky,

If he owns the domain, that you paid for and you have all the documentation that shows this you might want to send an e-mail to enom customer service. They might be able to help you get your domain name back. No guarantees though. Hate to see this happen to people.

Kind regards and good luck.

Jay Michael

HJM Software

[kepa]

Just say that you want things tidied up.

 

Alan is correct because you should be listed as at least the administrative contact. He doesn't own it, he was your agent in purchasing it for you.

[winstanley_john]

Whats your site? Is it just a basic oscommerce instillation. Either way he is obliged to provide you with a copy of the source code for the whole site by the GNU (The licence under which Oscommerce was written) he may charge a nominal fee for this.

 

The domain name is probably yours but registered in his name if you transfer your site to another host then you should ask him for control of your domian name, he may refuse but he may agree to point the domain name to your new host for a nominal fee. Ask him.

[Nicky]

he may charge a nominal fee for this

 

I'm afraid he doesn't know what a nominal fee is! ;)

[babel]

This will help you do a search on your host

 

http://www.samspade.org/

 

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An excellent forum for Web Hosting is

 

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

 

do a search on your host and see what comes up

 

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find out who own's the domain name

 

http://www.whois.sc/

 

hopefully the domain name is registered in your name

 

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hope this helps you out a little :)

 

babel