Legal issues when hosting clients' sites?
August 8, 2008 12:15 PM Subscribe
Are there legal issues with hosting others on my server and charging them for it? I assume many designers host clients for a fee, but I'm wondering if this is actually legal practice.
A designer I've been working with hosts 5 or 6 clients on her server for a fee. They each have their own domain. She'd like to transfer these folks to me to free up her work load. The only info I have so far is that they are all profs at the university she works for, their sites are fairly basic and I would also be updating them maybe a couple times a year. I should note that the content of their sites is not in question...these are portfolio/syllabus type sites.
My host is GoDaddy, this is their legal page (I didn't have much luck with it).
If everything is legal, what's the best way to go about transferring these people to my server? This article was somewhat helpful, but the real world moving analogy got on my nerves! :). Any advice or personal do's and dont's related to this would be awesome. Thanks!
Sorry for asking two in one. I'm kind of hesitant on this whole thing. If the second question needs to be cut, that's cool.
A designer I've been working with hosts 5 or 6 clients on her server for a fee. They each have their own domain. She'd like to transfer these folks to me to free up her work load. The only info I have so far is that they are all profs at the university she works for, their sites are fairly basic and I would also be updating them maybe a couple times a year. I should note that the content of their sites is not in question...these are portfolio/syllabus type sites.
My host is GoDaddy, this is their legal page (I didn't have much luck with it).
If everything is legal, what's the best way to go about transferring these people to my server? This article was somewhat helpful, but the real world moving analogy got on my nerves! :). Any advice or personal do's and dont's related to this would be awesome. Thanks!
Sorry for asking two in one. I'm kind of hesitant on this whole thing. If the second question needs to be cut, that's cool.
In response to jrockway, if I had all my clients take care of their own hosting, I'd be broke because they wouldn't know how to go about doing it and we'd never get their sites live. Most can barely set up their e-mail in Outlook.
So I take care of all that, and sure, there are problems from time to time (calls to say that the site is down, or e-mail is down) but I choose hosting companies that have great customer service, so with a phone call I can usually take care of it easily.
That said, I agree with jrockway that if this isn't something you know about or are comfortable with, I wouldn't take it on unless you have to. This is to help free up your friend's workload? It sounds like it's going to bog down *your* workload. Seems silly, unless you're interested in getting into hosting reselling. Which, yes, is perfectly legal.
posted by iguanapolitico at 12:30 PM on August 8, 2008
So I take care of all that, and sure, there are problems from time to time (calls to say that the site is down, or e-mail is down) but I choose hosting companies that have great customer service, so with a phone call I can usually take care of it easily.
That said, I agree with jrockway that if this isn't something you know about or are comfortable with, I wouldn't take it on unless you have to. This is to help free up your friend's workload? It sounds like it's going to bog down *your* workload. Seems silly, unless you're interested in getting into hosting reselling. Which, yes, is perfectly legal.
posted by iguanapolitico at 12:30 PM on August 8, 2008
If I understand correctly, the question isn't, "Is it legal to host other peoples' websites for them" (of course it is), but Do the GoDaddy Terms of Service allow reselling hosting / hosting multiple domains on one account? I don't know the answer, though I think it'd either be allowed or simply not possible (if you're only able to host one domain). Reselling hosting is a huge market, and definitely a legal/legitimate one.
The move will depend on how GoDaddy sets things up, though I'll note that it's super-easy to move sites if they're just static HTML pages, but gets more complicated if you're moving stuff that interacts with databases / is dynamic (e.g., a forum or blog), or e-mail. The basic gist, though, is that you copy everything over to your host, set it up as if it's live (which includes telling it that your 'server' is responsible for their domain), and then change their domain's nameservers to point to yours. Again, though, I haven't worked with GoDaddy as a host, so I don't know specifically how it's done.
I'll nth the others, though: you can probably do this, and it'll probably work, but if they're paying customers, you should ask yourself whether you really want to provide them with a service you don't fully understand. (It'd be kind of like agreeing to take over some clients from your masseuse friend, and then posting here, "How do I give a massage?")
posted by fogster at 1:13 PM on August 8, 2008
The move will depend on how GoDaddy sets things up, though I'll note that it's super-easy to move sites if they're just static HTML pages, but gets more complicated if you're moving stuff that interacts with databases / is dynamic (e.g., a forum or blog), or e-mail. The basic gist, though, is that you copy everything over to your host, set it up as if it's live (which includes telling it that your 'server' is responsible for their domain), and then change their domain's nameservers to point to yours. Again, though, I haven't worked with GoDaddy as a host, so I don't know specifically how it's done.
I'll nth the others, though: you can probably do this, and it'll probably work, but if they're paying customers, you should ask yourself whether you really want to provide them with a service you don't fully understand. (It'd be kind of like agreeing to take over some clients from your masseuse friend, and then posting here, "How do I give a massage?")
posted by fogster at 1:13 PM on August 8, 2008
Response by poster: It's perfectly legal. Why wouldn't it be!?
That was my exact reaction when someone dear to me posed the question, but then I thought... well I am reselling a service, so maybe it's an issue.
Thanks for the genuine concern so far. I understand that I would be in over my head a bit, but I'm also a quick learner and with a lot of design/web stuff I usually end up sort of figuring it out as I go. I'm hesitant because like you all have said, it seems like it might be kind of a headache. And if the clients had real problems all I'd be able to do is call my host. The real appeal is that it would enable me to pay for my hosting several times over. So that end of it I'll just have to decide for myself. If anyone else has tips and opinions on transferring these folks I'd love to hear them :)
posted by wundermint at 1:32 PM on August 8, 2008
That was my exact reaction when someone dear to me posed the question, but then I thought... well I am reselling a service, so maybe it's an issue.
Thanks for the genuine concern so far. I understand that I would be in over my head a bit, but I'm also a quick learner and with a lot of design/web stuff I usually end up sort of figuring it out as I go. I'm hesitant because like you all have said, it seems like it might be kind of a headache. And if the clients had real problems all I'd be able to do is call my host. The real appeal is that it would enable me to pay for my hosting several times over. So that end of it I'll just have to decide for myself. If anyone else has tips and opinions on transferring these folks I'd love to hear them :)
posted by wundermint at 1:32 PM on August 8, 2008
Best answer: There's nothing illegal about this and I don't see anything in their TOS that precludes it. A lot of web designers don't want to deal with the hassle of having the hosting be their responsibility (for the reasons mentioned above) but it's still quite common, especially when dealing with small clients who are not tech savvy enough to handle the hosting on their own.
I don't offer hosting for most clients but there are a couple clients who are also friends that I do it for. I don't bill them the direct cost of the hosting/domain services; I give them a fixed cost for hosting/domain management that justifies the hassle of having to be their webmaster.
As far as how to move the sites, the article you linked to is relevant in some parts but it's talking about moving an existing site to a new domain name, which is different than what you want to do if I understand correctly.
If you want to keep the current domains and the current sites the way they are and just change where they're hosted and administered, then there are two elements involved: moving the domains and moving the files. Each one is carried out separately.
Moving the domains requires a domain transfer request, which is handled by the registrars themselves but initiated by the domain owner. GoDaddy has pretty straightforward form for transferring domains. They will need to be unlocked at their current registrar first, which your friend can do.
For moving the files, the first thing you want to do is grab all of the files from the current site(s) via FTP or SSH. Moving databases is a bit more complicated but it doesn't seem like the sites you're talking about are anything but basic HTML.
I don't know what GoDaddy's setup is like but I assume you'll simultaneously be getting hosting accounts for each of the domains (rather than a single hosting account tied to multiple domains). If GoDaddy is both your registrar and the web host, it will automatically set the nameservers to the proper location when you transfer the domain and setup the hosting account.
Once the new hosting account is set up, then just drop the old site files in the new location.
It'll take 24-48 hours for the DNS to refresh and point to the new location but other than that, it's a pretty simple process.
posted by camcgee at 1:51 PM on August 8, 2008
I don't offer hosting for most clients but there are a couple clients who are also friends that I do it for. I don't bill them the direct cost of the hosting/domain services; I give them a fixed cost for hosting/domain management that justifies the hassle of having to be their webmaster.
As far as how to move the sites, the article you linked to is relevant in some parts but it's talking about moving an existing site to a new domain name, which is different than what you want to do if I understand correctly.
If you want to keep the current domains and the current sites the way they are and just change where they're hosted and administered, then there are two elements involved: moving the domains and moving the files. Each one is carried out separately.
Moving the domains requires a domain transfer request, which is handled by the registrars themselves but initiated by the domain owner. GoDaddy has pretty straightforward form for transferring domains. They will need to be unlocked at their current registrar first, which your friend can do.
For moving the files, the first thing you want to do is grab all of the files from the current site(s) via FTP or SSH. Moving databases is a bit more complicated but it doesn't seem like the sites you're talking about are anything but basic HTML.
I don't know what GoDaddy's setup is like but I assume you'll simultaneously be getting hosting accounts for each of the domains (rather than a single hosting account tied to multiple domains). If GoDaddy is both your registrar and the web host, it will automatically set the nameservers to the proper location when you transfer the domain and setup the hosting account.
Once the new hosting account is set up, then just drop the old site files in the new location.
It'll take 24-48 hours for the DNS to refresh and point to the new location but other than that, it's a pretty simple process.
posted by camcgee at 1:51 PM on August 8, 2008
There are a lot of resources online for Web hosting resellers. It's a pretty wacky community, at its worst kind of like day trader + slashdot, but I bet the good folks on the boards at Web Hosting Talk would be able to help you figure out what kinds of service level agreements you'll want to have with your clients (SLAs will govern things like whether you guarantee 99% uptime or 99.999% uptime) , providing customer service if they want to manipulate files themselves and screw them up, and whatever other parts of being a hosting reseller you might need to know.
But yeah, you'll want to explore the possibility of getting a reseller account.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:16 PM on August 8, 2008
But yeah, you'll want to explore the possibility of getting a reseller account.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:16 PM on August 8, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
But, if you're a designer do you really want to waste your time being a system administrator as well? Do you really want people calling you at 3am because GoDaddy goes down? You have no control over that situation, but since you are collecting the money, you are going to get blamed and be the sink of ill will.
Most designers tell their clients to manage their own hosting. That is the standard. That way, if something breaks, it's not your fault. It's not your area of expertise, so there's no reason to be blamed for it anyway. The margins on hosting are nonexistent ($2/month on dreamhost or whatever), so you are going to lose money and sleep doing this. Not a good idea.
Finally, your last question indicates that you really aren't ready for this. If you don't know how to move their sites and administer them competently, it's wrong to charge them for the service. And, you'll probably fuck it up and lose their design business as well.
posted by jrockway at 12:21 PM on August 8, 2008