An umbrella for the dot-com fallout

Three simple precautions can keep your Web site up and running.

by Stephen M. Canale   Real estate professionals are increasingly expressing concerns about the stability of their Web site providers, hosts, and developers. Most want to know how they can minimize the negative impact on their Web-based business if their developer either closes up shop or raises their fees to the point that they are no longer a reasonably affordable option.

Regardless of whether your Web site is provided by a national firm or a local developer, there are three simple steps you can take to protect yourself and minimize the inconvenience and loss of business that would likely follow such troubles with your provider.

Make absolutely sure that your Web site domain name is actually yours

As long as you own your domain, you can always contract with a new developer or host and have your Web site address point to your new site—all without your customers and clients ever knowing there was a change. If you’re not sure, then visit any domain registrar (Register.com, NetworkSolutions.com, and others), and look up your domain name in order to assure that you’re actually the registered owner.

This is particularly important if your developer or provider registered your domain name for you, as they may not have accurately listed you as the true owner of the domain name.

Avoid long-term contracts with Web-based companies

The dot-com fallout of the recent past should make it abundantly clear that there’s no guarantee that your Web- site provider will continue to be in business—or provide reliable and cost-effective service—over the long run. Whether you’ve gone with a national company or a small-time local developer, these risks are always present.

As long as you own your domain name, the risk to you is primarily financial, and you should minimize that risk by contracting for services on the shortest possible basis.

All other things being equal, if you’re comparing two Web site providers, and one requires payment for a year in advance, that should be considered as both a red flag and an unnecessary risk.

Keep personal copies of your site

Whether your provider goes out of business or simply raises their fees to a level that makes them unattractive, keeping copies of your current site will save you a fortune in both downtime and future development expenses should you hire a new developer.

If possible, have your current developer provide you with all of your site’s pages and scripts on a regular basis—perhaps quarterly.

If you have direct FTP (upload and download) access to the server where your site is hosted, then you can regularly download your site’s files yourself.

Even if neither of these two options is available, you can always use your browser to save copies of your site’s pages (use the File menu and then Save or Save As), or you can even print the pages as a last resort.

The more information you can present to your new developer, the faster your new site can be up and running, and at considerably less expense. Even if your next Web site will not be an identical copy of your current one, you will still save a great deal of time and expense by providing your new developer with this material.

No matter what you do, there’s no guarantee that you won’t be inconvenienced by a Web site provider who either goes out of business or fails to provide affordable and satisfactory service in the future.

However, following these three simple steps will save you countless dollars and can greatly limit the potential loss of business that results from your site being off-line for any length of time.

Stephen M. Canale, CRB, CRS, GRI, RAM, (Canale.com) is a speaker, educator, and trainer from Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to having instructed GRI programs for several state associations, he offers a wide variety of seminars on sales, technology, and marketing.

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