How to avoid being locked in to one company or web designer when your website is created
If your website is very simple with static content pages, images and forms then you can easily get a copy of your website if you have the ftp details of your site. You might even be able to save a copy using a program like httrack.
Why you can't you just take a copy of your website and go
If your website is based on a content management system or has dynamic software for photo galleries, shopping carts, blogs etc then you might find it a bit difficult to change web hosting companies and web designers if you ever decide you want to. It can be expensive to recreate a website from scratch when there are hundreds of products and pages to copy over. Even if you are happy with the companies who provide your web services, what if they go out of business or sell their customer base to someone else?
If your website has been setup in a proprietry web application that was developed by the company who created your website then you really will be stuck. To move you will have to start again and copy the content out of their software into your new site. Typically a software company won't give you the ability to copy their software to another server, they would lose the ability to control the code and they probably like protecting their intellectual property from people who might want to copy it.
In-house software not always the best solution
The main issue I take with in-house systems is that the company who built it typically doesn't have the resources to continuously develop and add new features and security measures like a dedicated software company does and if you want something specifically setup for your site you haven't got much hope of getting that without paying a lot extra.
Opensource software gives you more freedom
What I like to do is use opensource software, either free or commercial, so that we can both manipulate the code and take advantage of the thousands of hours that other developers have put into making the web software so brilliant. The advantage for us is that we don't spend a whole pile of money on reinventing existing software and our customers get better applications with more features, more secure websites and if they ever want to they could move their website to another hosting company or have another web designer work on the website for them.
Contracts don't keep website clients happy
Sometimes people we build websites for do get new web designers to work on their sites, or new web hosting companies to host their sites. We co-operate as necessary to make the transition possible. I don't believe in trying to do tricky technical things or having cleverly worded legal documents to stop our clients from taking their website elsewhere. If someone is unhappy enough to want to make the effort to leave or maybe they have other considerations like they hire someone fulltime to look after their website or the business is sold or whatever the case may be then there really isn't any benefit I can see in being a jerk and making life difficult for them.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would thing this is a strange thing to say but companies who want to be precious about trying to use technology or legality to make life difficult for others should think about what they could do to make people happier so that they would want to stay. The mortgage industry and telco industry are great examples of how you can lock people in with big exit fees so that they can't really choose a new provider without paying exhorbitant fees.
If you'd like a shopping cart for your website please email us info@newcastleinfo.com.au or call on 02 4950 1140 so that we can dicuss what you need.
