Web development - License CSS/Markup/Code
-
In development of a website, is it typical for the developer to retain rights to the CSS, Markup and other Coding? If so, why is this done?
-
They want to keep ownership so they have the classes, framework or whatever for reuse for future clients, increasing their profits. But I think that is slightly different to having a licence agreement and as you say with that model you could become prone to unreasonable fees.
-
If he's got a clause like that in his contract, it may be indicative of broader issues looming. You may want to reconsider developers.
-
Hi Demetrios,
As the other replies have said, no, it's definitely not typical. I would be a little concerned if this is a typical contract clause for this developer.
Thanks,
Greg -
Another point, how much of that code is learnt from or copied from other sources? Would he even have the right to call it his own?
-
Imagine getting a house build and then signing a rental agreement??
I build complied sites in MVC using visual studio, when I click publish, it compiles my code and produces a website on the server. If you wanted to make any changes at a later date you would need the Visual Studio project, I always give clients a copy of this project so they can do so.
-
Yea that's what I figured. I haven't paid anything to the developer so will wait for his response to removing that clause from the contract. The contract states he will license it to me, which makes no sense to me. Why would I paid you to program something for me, then it gets licensed to me. Then at anytime you can stop the licensing and hold my site hostage. Makes no sense..
-
I have been a computer programmer / web developer for over 20 years and no it is not.
I would tell them to take a hike, if you have already passed over any cash then I would ask for it back , if they did not tell you this before taking the money.
-
yep, if you paid for it you would like to own the copy right. If they keep it, then they can resell it to anyone legally, which I'm sure you would not be happy about.
-
Hi Demetrios,
The webdev companies I've worked with didn't posses the rights to the code. We always claim ownership of the source code and all others properties in every project.
Regards,
Pieter
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Core Web Vitals hit Mobile Rankings
Hey all, Ever since Google announced "Core Web Vitals" are mobile rankings have nose-dived. At first, I thought it was optimisation changes to the page titles we had made which might still be part of the issue. However, Desktop rankings actuallyy increased for the same pages where mobile decreased. There is the plan to introduce a new ranking signal into the Google algorithm called the "core web vitals: and this was discussed around late May. even though it's supposed to get fully indexed into a ranking signal later this year or early next; I think Google continuously test and release this items before any official release. If you weren't aware, there is a section in Google Webmaster Tools related to "core web visits", which looks at:1. Loading2. Interactivity3. Visual StabilityThis overlays some of the other basic requirements of a good website and mobile experience. Taking a look at our Google Search Console, it appears to be the following:1. Mobile- 1,006 poor URLs, 100URLs need improvement and 475 good URLs.2. desktop- 0 poor URLs, 379 need improvements and 1,200 good URLsSOURCE: https://search.google.com/search-console/core-web-vitals?resource_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.griffith.ie%2FIn the report, we can see two distinct issues with the mobile pages:CLS Issue: more than 0.25 (mobile)- 1,006 casesLCP issue: longer than 4secs (mobile) - 348 case_CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)This is a developer issue, and needs fixing. It's basically when a mobile screen jumps for the user. It is explained in this article: https://web.dev/cls/Seems to be an issue with all pages. **LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)_**Again, another developer fix that needs to be implemented. It's connected to page speed, and can be viewed here: https://web.dev/lcp/Looking at GCS, it looks like the blog content is mostly to blame.It's worth fixing these issues and again looking at the other items on page speed score tests:1. Leverage browser caching- https://gtmetrix.com/reports/griffith.ie/rBtvUC0F2. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=griffith.ie- mobile score for home page is 16/100, https://www.griffith.ie/people/thamil-venthan-ananthavinayagan is 15/100I think here is the biggest indicator of the issue at hand. Has anybody else noticed their mobile rankings go down and desktop stay the same of increase.Kind regards,
Web Design | | robhough909
Rob
0 -
Looking for live web examples of Medical schema
Has anyone seen a hospital system or medical clinic properly employ schema markup to their sites? This seems like very new territory, and we want to do it right by our client. Are there any best practices I need to look out for?
Web Design | | Madgenius3 -
Recommendations for top notch US based WP developers
I have a client that needs to get a WP template completely revamped. They work in residential contracting and this website will be for lead generation. The current WP template has several problems with load speeds, structured data, SSL issues, mobile template problems (most critical issue) and other issues. Their budget is $5K to $12K.
Web Design | | RosemaryB
Does anybody know of any US based (MUST be accessible by phone number) WP Developer who has a strong knowledge of SEO & Conversion optimization? Thanks0 -
Javascript with Responsive Web Design
The company I work for are looking to go responsive which is high up the list on our development plans. Further on down the development plan they want to add more javascript into the website. Is this recommended as we plan to go responsive ?
Web Design | | jmurphy70 -
Question #2: All of my INTERNAL links in OSE are being indexed from http://www.e.com/default.asp, and all my EXTERNAL links are linked to http://www.e.com/ am I getting a fraction of the link juice because of that?????
Hey guys, sorry for the really long question, but it appears that I am losing between 50 and 75 % of my link juice to my internal pages. In OSE all main category links (left sidebar) are being indexed from the URL that includes default.asp, even though NONE of my external links include that: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uncommonthread.com%2FSulky-Thread-s%2F78.htm If you check the PA for http://www.uncommonthread.com/: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uncommonthread.com%2F You see that it is practically double the PA of http://www.uncommonthread.com/default.asp: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uncommonthread.com%2FDefault.asp **Also, non of my internal menu links are being indexed. ** Look at the menu on this page: http://www.uncommonthread.com/Sulky-Thread-s/78.htm and then look at the OSE information here for the "invisible thread" item from the menu on the page above^^^: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uncommonthread.com%2FSulky-monofilament-s%2F54.htm Thanks SOOO much! Pre-thumbs and thanks to anyone that can lend me a seconds worth of advice! Thanks again for your time, Tyler A.
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Changing my web design
When you redo your website, I assume that sometimes it might turn out worse. For example, users might just like your prior design better and thus your prior design might actually have better stats. My blog doesn't receive a lot of hits. I have about 1500 hits per months. I don't think that i have enough traffic for A/B testing. Is there a work around to see if my new blog design does better or worse?
Web Design | | jamesjd71 -
SEOMoz crawl report shows a duplicate content and duplicate title for these two url's http://freightmonster.com/ and http://freightmonster.com/index.html. How do I fix this?
What page is attached to http://freightmonster.com/ if it is not the index.html ? Should I do a redirect from the index page to something more descriptive?
Web Design | | FreightBoy1 -
Should /dev folder be blocked?
I have been experiencing a ranking drop every two months, so I came upon a new theory this morning... Does Google do a deep crawl of your site say every 60-90 days and would they penalize a site if they crawled into your /dev area which would contain pretty the exact same urls and content as your production environment and therefore penalize you for duplicate content? The only issue I see with this theory is that I have been penalized only for specific keywords on specific pages, not necessarily across the board. Thoughts? What would be the best way to block out your /dev area?
Web Design | | BoulderJoe0