If you rely solely on your web designer, you may find
yourself wondering how to take care of your web site if he
or she can no longer maintain it for you.
There are certain things you need to know for maintaining
your web site, so be sure that you have this information
before you are no longer in touch with your designer.
Here is the information you need whether you plan on
maintaining it yourself or hiring a new web designer:
1. Hosting account information:
- username, password, host name to update or back up your
web site
- hosting company web address
- support e-mail and phone number
You may want to back up your web site by logging in and
downloading all your files to your computer. Use WS_FTP or
another FTP program for transferring files.
2. Domain name information:
- registrar company name
- registrar company web address
- username and password to manage your domain
Find out whose name and e-mail address are on the
administrative contact of your domain. If it's your web
designer's (which shouldn't be the case initially) change it
immediately to yours.
3. Passwords to important pages:
A web site may have
- an autoresponder
- a shopping cart
- a tell-a-friend
- a message board
- any other interactive feature.
Be sure to ask for all the passwords, usernames, and web
site addresses to be able to access the administration
screens of all of these tools.
4. CGI scripts and other updates:
Be sure to ask your web designers if any CGI scripts have
been set up that need to be updated. See if any other files
need regular maintainance. Also, ask which web editor was
used to create your web site. It is not crucial, but may be
useful to you when a problem with your own web editor arises.
Keep this information in one file, on your computer or on
paper. You will want to refer to it as soon as you need to
make an update to your site, or if you're ready to hire a
web designer.
Milana Leshinsky
P.S. By the way, did you know that SPAM was named after a
amous Monty Python parody on the canned meat product? (see
http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html to hear this skit)
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