My husband and I own two businesses and for the first three years in business I managed our websites using an inexpensive bare bones program for Macs called RapidWeaver making use of my 1999 HTML basic skills. The websites were adequate.
Last fall we decided to step it up a notch and move to WordPress. Enter serious lapse in judgment. I did exactly what I caution potential clients not to do. I looked at the price tag first and opted to contract someone through an online service in India. What a bargain – I got a brand new website for only $350!
Since then our site has been hacked twice and pulled down by Google both times with warnings to all of our customers that our site contained malware; recently when I accepted the theme update my site crashed as it turned out that the developer built my site on WordPress’ free platform that is not supposed to be altered – so when I did the update WordPress stripped away all the design (as per their terms of use ) and left me with a very ugly site. Finally, this last week, one of the two sites has been hacked again resulting in all traffic being directed to some advertising site. I should also point out that these “hacks” happen each time I’ve allowed the offshore company access to my FTP login to fix a problem with their original build.
Despite the online service I used having an arbitration process and feedback process, because I had already released payment and submitted 5 star feedback before these problems emerged, I have no recourse.
These online sites to source offshore services hold value if you are looking for people to add to your stable of talent; a web developer who understands the business looking to subcontract some of your work. However, if you are looking for someone to be an expert in a field you don’t know much about enter these waters with caution.
The total cost to us so far has been $1000, time, embarrassment and now we are going to have to have our sites rebuilt.
I’m not suggesting that you would never have a problem if you worked with someone local; but you will have a better opportunity to build a relationship with them and the chances of them wanting to foster a good relationship with you are high as you are both swimming in the same waters.
For a friendly local web developer/designer who can help you get your site up and running here are a few that we can recommend – check them out: