Web developer won't 301 redirect to my new website....what can I do?

[CoGri]

I want to come away from our third party web developer and use a new website with different web developers, however the web developer wont 301 redirect the old url's to the new ones. Is he required to do this by law? Is there away of doing the 301 redirects without him?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,Tom

[CoGri]

Thanks EGOL, Shane and Peter.

The good news is that we own the domain, what isn't so great is that we don't own the hosting (Big lesson learned here).

Some how I need to take control of the hosting.

Thanks everyone for all your help, I'm truly grateful.

Tom

[EGOL]

First see who owns the domain.  You check the WHOIS to learn that.   To check WHOis....   Go here, type your domain in the blank and see who is the "registrant".  That person is the official "owner".   If it is not you then you will have to ask them to make you the registrant.  If they refuse then you have a legal matter.

Sometimes people hide their name from public view in the WHOIS.  If the name is not visible then you have a problem.

After that, there are two parts of controlling a domain.

1. Domain registration access:  This is done by having an account with the registrar who administers the domain.  Places like godaddy, networksolutions are registrars.  Look at the WHOIS again and see who is the...  Registrar URL You will need a domain registration account with them to control DNS.  (DNS points the domain to a server at a hosting company.)

2. Hosting Access:  This is where the files of the website are on a webserver.  Your .htaccess file is there.  Go back to the WHOIS and look at the **Name Server  **That will sometimes reveal the hosting company such as godaddy,com  networksolutions.com  pair.com  etc.

[Jinx14678]

I would highly suggest as EGOl points out looking into hiring a reputable firm to help you with this - As, what I have suggested will only get your domain under your control, to then configure it as you wish.

.htaccess is an Apache server side technology, this is what controls the actual 301 redirect (or through Vhost) but the nameservers of the domain must be pointed to a server you can control first.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/reclaim-website-from-bad-web-designer-host.shtml

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/426118/how-can-i-take-control-of-my-domain-that-is-registered-to-me-but-controlled-by-w

This might help clear it up

[CoGri]

Thanks Shane, that's great advice.

From what I understand to be able to implement 301 redirects I need access to the .htaccess file. Would domain control rights / name servers provide me with this?

[EGOL]

"If you do, then you can change the nameservers for that domain to your where your new website will be hosted once that website is ready to go live."

Crackingmedia nails it.

Get control of the nameservers - by getting exclusive access to the domain registration account. If you don't know how to do that then hire an experienced webdeveloper or SEO to do it for you.

The problem can be... that the current developer registered the domain in his name.  So you might have a legal fight to get it.

In my opinion, 301s must be held in place for a long time. You don't want to trust your current weasel to do this for you.

Take control of the domain.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Tom

Along similar lines to Shane's answer but the critical questions is do you own the current domain?

If you do, then you can change the nameservers for that domain to your where your new website will be hosted once that website is ready to go live.

If you are keeping the same domain for your new site, that will be even easier, because your new developers will be able to capture a sitemap of your current site with your current developer and create a list of 301 redirections needed to point the current URL to the new URL for each page. Then, prior to the new site going live when the nameservers are switched to your new host, as long as the 301 redirections are active on the server where your new site is hosted, everything should work smoothly.

I hope that helps based on the info you have given, but do post back if you have more info or need more explanation.

Peter

PS. And as far as I know there is no legal requirement for a developer to provide 301 redirects.

[Jinx14678]

If you own the domain - you have the rights to do with it as you please. If he owns it then he does.

I would not say he is "required by law" to do a 301 redirect, but you can forcibly take domain and registrar control, to then do with it as you please - by contacting your domain name registrar or current host. (unless developer is your host, then you will need to go straight to the registrar.

Be sure to have the new host/environment setup prior to this though as you will need to tell the registrar where to send domain control rights (name servers) then at that point you will have domain control at a Host/registrar of you choosing.