How much should it cost to add meta tags to an ASP file?

May 30, 2007 12:24 PM

ASPfilter... my company has a website that was constructed in classic ASP. We wanted to add some meta keywords to the header, so we had the original designers add the keywords to the header file. Long story short, they're now charging us for 4 hours of work, which included testing. That's $600. Am I wrong to think we're being overbilled?
posted by bucko to technology (16 comments total)

$150/hour? That seems pretty average, if it's a company or firm you're dealing with.

4 hours, though, seems like they're padding their hours. I'm talking out of my butt here having not seen the code, but it shouldn't take more than 2 to develop and test. Well, unless it's spaghetti code, in which case that's their own fault for building it that way.
posted by dw at 12:30 PM on May 30, 2007

You didn't get an estimate first?
posted by smackfu at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

I can't see your code, but I'm guessing that's pretty reasonable. No change takes 15 minutes.

There's figuring out what you need to add / change, then you have to have someone actually make the change, upload the change, test the change, etc.

If the change is in one place, that's one thing. If it's on every page, or a variety of pages, that's another.
posted by bshort at 12:34 PM on May 30, 2007

I don't question the hourly rate and I know things take time, but 4 hours to add a list of meta keywords to a single header file?
posted by bucko at 12:40 PM on May 30, 2007

Is that how it's really structured? If so, why not do it yourself?
posted by bshort at 12:46 PM on May 30, 2007

My guess is that they have a standardized procedure for making any change, where they have to do a full suite of tests on the page to make sure that nothing is screwed up. This leads to good code, but as you've seen, also leads to padded hours. It's a win-win situation for the designers.

FWIW, search engines rarely take meta information into account anymore, because it is so widely abused. Next time, save your 600 bucks and update your content instead.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:46 PM on May 30, 2007

I know it's incredibly easy in HTML, but perhaps they were doing something a bit more complicated with the ASP pages, like this?

Still, I learn toward what dw said. Maybe their boss is padding the hours? I know mine does that sometimes...I report that it took me x hours for a project, but it doesn't mean that's what he bills.
posted by Liosliath at 12:49 PM on May 30, 2007

4 hours is completely unreasonable for adding a bit of text to a single header file - IF that was all they did.

Did you provide the meta data or did they? Is the meta data the same on every page?

I have currently sitting in my inbox, 3 sets of metadata to add to a client's pages. if it were a simple case of find the header and add the right meta data for each page the job would be a cinch - maybe take me 15-30 minutes tops.

However, there are 3 different sets of data and all pages use the same header file so ofcourse the job because a lot more complex than half an hours work. Its quite concievable that the job could take a few hours - though even then probably not 4.
posted by missmagenta at 12:54 PM on May 30, 2007

Many consultants/freelancers (such as I) have a minimum four-hour billing window. However, four hours sounds reasonable, given that they need to account for project management, doing the changes, testing it on their server, uploading to your server, liaising with you, etc.
posted by acoutu at 12:57 PM on May 30, 2007

$150 is lower than my consulting company charges per hour for development work, so I don't think that's unreasonable.How much work making those changes is completely dependent on what the current code looks like, and how much testing was involved, how long it took to set it up so it could be tested, time to get re-acquainted with the code, hashing out exactly what you want done, etc, etc. Hence, in my very very humble opinion, a half-days work for 1 developer doesn't sound like you're being completely ripped off at all.
posted by cgg at 1:00 PM on May 30, 2007

Argh... that should read "how much work IS REQUIRED IN making those changes..."
posted by cgg at 1:01 PM on May 30, 2007

That's a big giant "it depends".

It depends how the site/app is structured (was it changes to one template file, many files, or many sets of files?)

It depends on how big the site is and what their testing plan is.

It depends if they built the site and are familiar with the code base or if this is something that's been modified since they originally touched it.

It depends on the market rate for both your city and your vertical. Rates in New York City are going to be different than Rates in Albany.

It depends on how many times the spec changed or how often you had to interact with them/their manager to finalize the details.

It depends if they're tired of dealing with a client (aka. you), and decide to "nickel and dime" them away.

It depends on a whole lot of things.

Without knowing any of these things ... chances are they're not deliberately trying to rip you off. Chances also are you could find someone to do this work for a lower rate, but that person wouldn't be equipped to handle major functionality updates.

Suggestions

1. Always get an estimate up front

2. Ask them to explain their quoting/estimating procedure. (some agencies create a flat rate for updates, kind of like a car mechanic)

3. Ask if they offer a maintenance rate. Some agencies will do maintenance work (copy changes, etc.) for a rate that's lower than their development rate
posted by alan at 1:30 PM on May 30, 2007

that really seems excessive, but i can't see the code.

as stated earlier, metadata is useless. make your link/anchor text more specific, ad alt text to images, title attributes to links etc etc. you will get more search engine visibility that way. metadata is very 1998
posted by nihlton at 2:48 PM on May 30, 2007

For anything that is "company critical," it is important to do what is known as regression testing.

The last thing you want to have happen is for them to "just make this eency little change" and have it break something else. Whether that testing should be 1, 2, or 4 hours depends on what you really had them do. 4 hours seems on the long side for adding keywords to a single file, but I don't know your system well enough to say it's that simple or not.
posted by chimaera at 3:33 PM on May 30, 2007

For something like this, I'd do it for free for an existing client if it was just a matter of pasting in some words and uploading a file to a server I've already worked on.. but if I had to discuss it, offer some advice on the words, track down the file(s), get hold of login details, upload and test then I might charge half a day, particularly if I was a larger company with a significant overheard involved for any piece of work. It's probably excessive, but companies have to avoid dealing with lots of tiny fragments of time to stay profitable.

Next time, ask in advance about cost; they may well have happily agreed to do it for free if you'd raised the topic in the right way.
posted by malevolent at 3:44 PM on May 30, 2007

My guess is that 4 hours accounts for adding it to the pages for the site in question manually, as I'm betting the site wasn't set up on any sort of global include/template system.

If that was the case, and depending on the size of your site, 4 hours sounds pretty reasonable to me.
posted by thanotopsis at 4:58 PM on May 30, 2007