Taking over an existing site
It is an ordinary situation nobody talks about: the site is online, it cost money, and nobody looks after it any more. Whoever built it changed trade, stopped answering, or bills every gesture at redesign prices. A takeover is work in four stages, and it starts with an assessment, not a quote.
The four stages of a takeover
-
The assessment
What is online, what still works, what is broken without anyone noticing, and what the foundations are worth. Sometimes the existing site is sound and nothing needs rebuilding; sometimes a rebuild costs less than resuscitation. The assessment says so before you commit to anything.
-
Locating the domain and the hosting
The decisive question, and the one most often unanswered: who holds the domain name, who hosts the site, and in whose name. Even approximate, the information can be recovered: registries are public. The goal never changes: both in your name, with providers you pay directly.
-
Backing up what exists
Before touching anything, everything that can be copied is copied: texts, images, data. A neglected site can die while being worked on, and ten years of content cannot be rewritten from memory.
-
The switchover without downtime
The rebuilt or recovered site is built alongside, checked, then the address switches. Visitors see neither a blank page nor a building site: one day, the site is simply current.
The three questions that keep coming back
- Will I lose my address?
- No, if the domain name is in your name, and that is precisely what a takeover checks first. If it is in a third party’s name, transfer procedures exist, and the earlier you start, the simpler they are. The address is what your clients know: it is kept.
- Does my former provider have to cooperate?
- It is simpler when they do, and most do so properly. But it is not indispensable: what is public can be copied, what is in your name can be transferred, and what is missing can be rebuilt. A takeover never depends on the goodwill of someone who no longer answers.
- What happens to my content?
- It is yours and it is backed up before anything else. Texts and images are kept as they are or re-typeset, and nothing is discarded without you seeing it. Page addresses that change are redirected, so links accumulated over the years keep leading somewhere.
And the price?
A takeover can only be priced honestly after the assessment: it is what says whether to repair, rebuild or simply resume maintenance. What is public upfront: upkeep starts again from the yearly floor shown on the pricing page, and the quote, once signed, does not move.
Where to start
Write to us with what you know, even incomplete: the site’s address, who holds the domain and the hosting if you know, and what bothers you today. The answer arrives within one to two working days.