Calling all web designers

[molamann]

So my mother spent a quite a big chunk of money on a web design company to create and maintain a website for her business but she didn't know that the company would only maintain the site for 6 months. Currently she has roughly about 2 months before the webpage goes down and I have some questions on how to sustain the website.

First off, I'm quite comfortable with computers with the exception of web page and programming contents, not even html. So assumeing that the website and all its contents belongs to my mother, is it simple as just moving the website to another host?

And once I find a new host, how hard will it be too update the website? Is it something I can figure out on my own? If not, how much will it cost to hire somebody to update and add contents?

[Anatoray]

The difficulty completely relies on her knowledge of websites, hosts, and how soon she finds someone to maintain it.

If the website uses advanced coding like MySQL, XML, and other database type stuff, then she will need to either stick with the same host, which might be possible without continuing on with the company maintaining the site, or move to another host that offers the same set of tools. If she can do the latter, then all she need do is transfer the entire contents on the ftp, which I hope she has access to.

Updating and maintaining the site itself could prove difficult, however. Depending on who she's dealing with, she may very well not own anything on the site except the domain name. If a company creates a website entirely, then the code is their property, not hers. She is paying for the right to use the code and their services on her website for those 6 months most likely, and if she chooses to drop them, she probably can no longer legally use the code. Check the source code on her webpage, because it should have copyright claims at the top of the coding.

What's her webaddress, if you don't mind me asking?

[xyz]

Moving the website to another host may not be so simple. Like Anatoray mentioned, if all the contents were pure html, it would be easy. However, it becomes more involved it her website involves dynamic content and backend (database) access, where you would have to move data also.

Again, updating the website depends on what technology was used to begin with. A lot of these web design companies use a set template and just make your website through their own content management system, in which case, it would be rather difficult to do. Companies do this so you would eventually pay them more to do maintenance, as is in your mother's case. However, if your mother's website is pure html and all static content, then you just have to learn html to update it once you find and move to the new host.

Cost to update a website really depends, like I mentioned above, on what technology was used to begin with. I am guessing it would range from $20 (simple html) to $150 (heavy coding + backend stuff) per hour, depending on how involved it would be.

It really can't be determined until you find out how was your mother's website was constructed and how often and involved her future updates would be. Hope this sheds a little bit of light on your question.

[k20z3]

I designed my own website, because my knowledge of HTML CSS etc wasn't up to par... its easier to do flash these days apparently which I have not tried as of yet!

Don't always go with the cheapest too, I got to do mine for free with a friend, but totally unreliable.

[molamann]

United Gold

That's the website, can anyone check if any complicated coding is involved?