Polly Jay

Hello everyone - I'm here as I need to learn & I need help!
After percevering with my * e-commerce website developers/managers/seo managers and paying £1000's in the last 18 months, now I know a little more about all this stuff (with opinions from other web professionals that I am being over charged), I know not to put up with this anymore and am actually relieved to be planning to 'cut my losses'. The final straw was because we can't access parts of the site to add code ourselves (quick stuff - google analytics/tracker tools etc) and they now have this £200 to £300 charge for each addition we ask for. So I'm now building another site from scratch around an e-commerce database and then I'm going to try to understand how to optimise it myself/link build etc. Being very short on time, I may have to get help and this really worries me - who to trust and how much to pay for 'natural' SEP help?
They * were very helpful at the sales time and when I was going to register my domain names they said they would do it for me, so I told them what they were, that I had checked they were available etc. Well, they actually registered them as their own (in small print, massive terms & conditions!) and I am no doubt going to have a job getting them back - but I do have in writing that I can pay to get them back (amazing but the best I could achieve). The contract ends in November 07. The existing domain 'in use' is http://www.shopatchild.co.uk and I also have http://www.designerchildrensclothes.com (that they also 'stole'). Fantastic! - I just typed this one in and my website people now have it pointing at their website. We could write a book about the problems we have had but we have a contract to honour, have a website with 1400 products (took ages to build, not easy to start again for a small business) and I just wondered if it was 'better the devil you know'.
I've just done some checking with the tools on this site and it says I have a page rank of 3 but no google back-links/all yahoo. I recently did some of my own work paying for good links/directories but understand they take a little while to show up. (I think they are useful links as I'm trying to get tips from other 'similar' websites, and these links are showing up in the google checks for them).
So I'll be all over the place on this site to try to understand more. Don't want to be 'had' again. I'm really fed up and still feel ignorant about it all!
Immediately, for my new website, should I go with a different domain or wait to try to attach the existing one but that won't be until November (or later if they are difficult and we take legal action to recover them)? Or I own the shopatchild.com domain - would that help? What implications are there, either way, re google/search engines/page rank and so on?
Any help & advice, gratefully received on any area anyone can help out with.
Polly

Flipflop

Hello Polly and welcome

I personally have always kept my domain registrar and my web hosts separate and if I was to ever require the assistance of an outside developer they would also be independent of the other two, it's a good rule of thumb and has served me well. Always register your domain name through a reputable registrar that has an established history, cheap is not always the best.

Have you tried contacting this company and asking them to transfer the domain names to your registrar and into your control. Securing your domain name I would say is the most important thing here (personal opinion), the content/the site itself can always be rebuilt, but to lose your established domain is sad

If you think that you have a case and as I see the company you are talking about are in the UK then contact your local trading standards office to find out where you legally stand, they may well be able to help.

Good Luck

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sabian1982

Ochie... it sounds like the best lesson you have learnt is to keep in control of your domain names and hosting... as Flipflop mentioned getting full control of your site and domains is your first priority.

I managed to find your site on Google and MSN for the search term 'kids designer clothing' (all be it on page 4 of MSN) - obviously though your position will depend on what the targetted keyword/phrases have been.

Something to perhaps think about is the use of changing your root domain. Instead of directing designerchildrensclothing.com to shopatchild.co.uk perhaps redirect in the other direction - this would potentially give you better SE results owing to the fact that your .com contains three of your primary keywords! It would definately give your site an inital boost.

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