Developer SOS | Getting Chauffeurs of Carnoustie back on the road

Developer SOS supporting Chauffeurs of Carnoustie

by David Dwyer on 04/06/2014

The real risks of losing control of your own domain & website

Stuck in reverse is probably the best way to describe the website of luxury wedding-car hire firm Chauffeurs of Carnoustie before its owners got in touch with Inspire’s Developer SOS Service.

The wheels started to come off when their web developer changed jobs, and was no longer available or willing to provide hosting or website support. But worse was to come.

With the developer no longer there to keep an eye on the road, the company’s domain-name registration lapsed, making the website all but invisible to new customers. The confusion moved up a gear when the owners discovered that their developer had purchased their name from a domain-name reseller. This isn’t normally a problem, but it quickly becomes one when he doesn’t return your calls and the reseller can't deal with you direct!

When Inspire hopped into the driving seat, our Developer SOS team went into overdrive. We contacted the original registrar of the domain name (rather than just the reseller) to get things moving. But we soon hit a pothole. Chauffeurs of Carnoustie had to go through the whole registration process again – involving the usual reams of ID and seven-day wait to see if the re-seller and original developer chose to respond. They didn’t.

During our due diligence review of all the elements of the client's online presence, we noticed other domain names with the same issue, as well as that the website’s hosting agreement was about to expire. With still no contact from the previous developer, we took a back-up of the site files and database and set the website up on our own server. Fortunately Chauffeurs of Carnoustie still had access to their server control panel.

The website hosting contract duly expired, as we were unable to renew it without a reply from the previous developer. However on the same day the hosting contract expired, we got the domain name moved to Inspire's management and directed it to our website hosting – where it has revved away happily ever since!

David Dwyer is Managing Director of Inspire Web Development. He has years of experience in a range of web and IT roles plus seven years in sales and marketing in a blue-chip FMCG company. David’s academic and professional qualifications include a BA (Hons) in Business Economics (Personnel & Ergonomics) from the University of Paisley, an MSc in Information Technology (Systems) from Heriot- Computer Society, Entrepreneurial Exchange and Business for Scotland.

Follow Inspire on Twitter @inspireltd and @developersos

Developer SOS, Domain Names, Generic Top Level Domains, gTLD's, Inspire Web Development, Inspire Web Services, Outsourced Web Development, The Evolving Web, Web Design, Website Management, Website Support

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