Forum Moderators: phranque

Message Too Old, No Replies

How to Recover Domains from Missing in Action Web Developer?

         

Aeolus

7:37 am on Jan 27, 2022 (gmt 0)



Hello,

We've had quite a year. The short, my dad passed away and he supported a freelance web developer who then also offered his hosting packages which my dad agreed to and moved 8 websites over to his server. 3 of those domains are also registered with GoDaddy which is set up with the web developers credentials. We do receive renewal notifications though to our emails but we cannot log in to the account. If we try to reset the password, the web guy's e-mail pops up where the reset link is sent to. We also do not have access to any hosting dashboard.

With me writing in this forum, you can probably already guess the next sentence. We haven't heard from the Webmaster since October, no feedback at all. We do receive automatic Paypal bills monthly which we keep paying as we don't want to lose any of our websites. Who knows in these times, he may have passed away too and automatic systems are still running... as long as we top up the Paypal account, it will give us more time to find a solution without losing anything. My logic at least.

But we do not to get into action and save those websites. They are fairly simple based on:
1) Wordpress
2) DataLife

Are there any ways to back up the websites to move to another host?

We could export the content via the Wordpress dashboard? DataLife will be a bit more problematic.

Alternatively, my own logic as a non-developer would say that we duplicate the website manually in a testing environment (copy/paste job), cut the cord to the current web host and point the domains to the new websites. This could work for 5 of those websites where we have access to the domain registration company, for the other 3 we still need to find access to the GoDaddy account somehow.

Just looking for feedback here if there are any easier solutions ... it's not a situation of my own making so please be nice. ;)

Thank you - all help is appreciated.
Marvin.

phranque

8:35 am on Jan 27, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], Marvin!

if you have access to the DNS configuration, you could point to another web server, but the DNS host is often also the registrar and/or web host.

ultimately you need to have control of the domain (i.e., registrar account)

Aeolus

9:53 am on Jan 27, 2022 (gmt 0)



Thank you so much. For 5 out of 8 of the domains we have access to the domain registration. Collecting data for GoDaddy already so we can recover the account.

robzilla

11:35 am on Jan 27, 2022 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



You can use a plug-in like BackWPup to back up a full WordPress site. I'm not familiar with DataLife.

Is this a local developer, or at least someone in the same country? Maybe do a little research and see if you can get a hold of them (or a family member) somehow, because at some point you will likely lose those domain names you don't have direct access to. There's not much the registrar can do for you if the domains are not in your father's name.

Sorry for your loss!