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
-
Needs clarification: How "Disallow: /" works?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. I have noticed we have given "Disallow: /" in one of our sub-directory beside homepage. So, how it going to work now? Will this "Disallow: /" at sub-directory level going to disallow only that directory or entire website? If it is going to work for entire website; we have already given one more Disallow: / at homepage level blocking few folders. How it is going to handle with two Disallow: / commands? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Is this spammy/panda problem?
We have a property site and have many area pages with listings of properties. For example, one page may have up to 30 properties listed, with 100 words of description on that listing page for that property and then you click 'more info' to get to the page of that property with maybe 200 words in total. I want to add bullet points for each property on the area page but Im worried that it may be seen by google as spammy even though its usefull to the client. For example, if I had 30 properties on a page, and 28 of them said next to each picture.. Property Type: Shared, Open Plan, Single Bed Would that be a problem for google?
Web Design | | nick-name1230 -
Is it cloaking/hiding text if textual content is no longer accessible for mobile visitors on responsive webpages?
My company is implementing a responsive design for our website to better serve our mobile customers. However, when I reviewed the wireframes of the work our development company is doing, it became clear to me that, for many of our pages, large parts of the textual content on the page, and most of our sidebar links, would no longer be accessible to a visitor using a mobile device. The content will still be indexable, but hidden from users using media queries. There would be no access point for a user to view much of the content on the page that's making it rank. This is not my understanding of best practices around responsive design. My interpretation of Google's guidelines on responsive design is that all of the content is served to both users and search engines, but displayed in a more accessible way to a user depending on their mobile device. For example, Wikipedia pages have introductory content, but hide most of the detailed info in tabs. All of the information is still there and accessible to a user...but you don't have to scroll through as much to get to what you want. To me, what our development company is proposing fits the definition of cloaking and/or hiding text and links - we'd be making available different content to search engines than users, and it seems to me that there's considerable risk to their interpretation of responsive design. I'm wondering what other people in the Moz community think about this - and whether anyone out there has any experience to share about inaccessable content on responsive webpages, and the SEO impact of this. Thank you!
Web Design | | mmewdell0 -
Responsive Web Design WordPress Template Suggestions
Does anyone have any RWD WP templates they would suggest? It's for a friend of mine that is starting a local solar panel installation company. For the beginning, he likely will not have more than a handful of categories and subcategories. I'd say no more than 50 total pages. Any suggestions would help. He doesn't want to spend more than $50 - $100, but he's not married to that figure if it's worth it. Thanks everyone, Ruben
Web Design | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
TOP 5 Questions I Should Ask a web designer or developer?
I want to redesign my website to work better with SEO and crawls. I need to make sure I hire a good designer/developer but I don't have a ton of money to spend. What are the top 5 questions I should ask a web designer/developer to ensure they are good designers and have successfully implemented SEO??...or at least a site that is crawled well and has some SEO built in.
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
Need help setting up google analytics goals / tracking
I don't use Google analytics to see much more than how many visits I'm getting and what sort of keywords people are using to find our site. I'd like to step up my GA skills a bit. I'm wondring if you guys could give me some advice. I've never really set up any GA goals, or used it to track specific things, but I'd like to. Here are a few things off the top of my head that I would like to track. I'm wondring if these are posable in GA, and if someone could give me some feedback on how to track it / set up goals. Thanks.1 1. I'd like to know how many people click play on a video when they are on a page that has a video. 2. I'd like to know how many people are clicking "like" " google plus, etc.) 3. I'd like to know the path people are taking on our site. For instance, if they click a link from Facebook, and go to a landing page, what page are they visiting next..... 4. How long people are staying on the page I would really like to break this down further by people that visit a link I posted on Facebook, or twitter, or from the link on my twitter profile page, etc... Also if there are any other valuable goals / reports that would be useful for a blogger to track I'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks.
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
Dynamic pages and code within content
Hi all, I'm considering creating a dynamic table on my site that highlights rows / columns and cells depending on buttons that users can click. Each cell in the table links to a separate page that is created dynamically pulling information from a database. Now I'm aware of the google guidelines: "If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few." So we wondered whether we could put the dynamic pages in our sitemap so that google could index them - the pages can be seen with javascript off which is how the pages are manipulated to make them dynamic. Could anyone give us a overview of the dangers here? I also wondered if you still need to separate content from code on a page? My developer still seems very keen to use inline CSS and javascript! Thanks a bundle.
Web Design | | tgraham0
