I’ve been comparing companies on the web that do website repair. One stood out because they advertise an emergency website restore service for $479. They claim:
Restoration of Crashed Websites
Restoring Hacked Websites
Fixing Security Breaches
Restoration of Functionality
Broken Shopping Carts
For only $479.
I’m thinking they must first have a copy of your initial working site, because its impossible to guarantee a fully fixed site without finding out what’s broken first, and that takes some time. You can spend hours sifting through pages looking for errors. Programmers will tell you that most of their work is figuring out where everything is; it’s even more time consuming without any documentation from the original site designer.
Then I read the small print: NOTE: . .we will only restore your site to its prior state and functionality, any site improvements will be considered new work and billed accordingly.
Well, there you go. They’re simply asking your host to revert back to a previous working version of your site, if there is one. This you can do yourself. Most hosts will restore your site from a previous date for no charge, and they can help to identify any security breaches.
There are plenty of web site repair firms, especially offshore, that promise repairs and maintenance at a cheap price. If it’s a hobby or personal site, go for it, but you get what you pay for. For a business or e-commerce site that will be your company’s presence over the long haul, try to establish a relationship with a reputable web support person or company. There are several good companies out there (I like to think we’re one); and I’ve worked with a few myself.
When hiring someone to repair or update your site, 3 things to expect
1. A diagnostic fee (usually). Like any service industry, for the repairman to give an estimate, he first needs to make a house call, and that generally involves a service fee. It does take time to look over your system. Although, if it’s a very simple, obvious repair, the webmaster may let you slide on this.
Besides, I’d rather pay a smaller charge for an analysis than risk say, $479 on a “maybe we can fix it” service. At the very least you can take that diagnosis and shop around for other webmasters.
2. Allowing access to your host server. They really do need it to give a fair analysis. If you’re worried about security, change your passwords ahead of time and again AFTER they’ve looked at your files. You might also ask your host to do a back up of your site first, as a precaution.
I once mistakenly worked for a client who wouldn’t allow me to log into the site server. Understandably, he was worried about security, but after repairing the files (which he had e-mailed), he insisted on uploading them himself. Yikes. Naturally, things did not behave the same online as they did offline. There can be many reasons for that. For example, if:
– the files weren’t saved in the right format
– they were uploaded in binary rather than ascii mode
– the permissions weren’t set
– files were placed into the wrong folders
– the host didn’t support that version of code
At any rate, we couldn’t test online and guarantee the result, so he went away disappointed. We wasted time and lost income as we didn’t charge for the service. There has to be a certain level of trust between your webmaster and yourself.
3. Communicating by e-mail. It’s not the only way, but since webmaster tasks are done online, much of the communication will be done digitally, too. Webmasters prefer to receive instructions in written form, so they can be sure of your requirements (some will ONLY communicate this way). However, if you’re a customer who really needs to explain your requests face-to-face or by phone, your web person should understand and can accommodate that. If they have an online chat system, it’s another quick way to send your questions.