IT Problem: Hosting suspended - Webmaster MIA
 

IT people (or anyone with knowledge on this)! My company website just got taken down by the hosting company. The Webmaster had decided to retire in April, but told us that the hosting should be up until September. He cannot be contacted.

Due to this, verification of account details is not possible. While I understand that there are privacy policies, Hostgator is being very unsupportive in this matter. What can I do as a work around? Or am I royally screwed and need to start from scratch?

TIA!

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you can download majority of the site and just setup with new hosting with the downloaded files.
Depends on what coding was used to create the site.

I don't think I have access to those downloaded files. I think the webmaster has it, unless you're talking about downloading from the domain. Sorry noob af at this.

Update, I found login to GoDaddy but since that's domain, I don't think it can help my case. I also used to be able to login to the website, but since website is down. I don't know how that would help either.

If you have access to the domain registrar, you can temporarily host a landing page with another webhost and point your DNS records to that landing page until you can get access to your site's files. That way, at the very least you'll have something running.

If it's just static html you can download it and host it yourself somewhere else

So if I change DNS to another webhost, that will automatically load the files?

How do I know if its static html? Where do I even find my files?

The lesson learnt here is to never let small contractors do the work for you.

Easiest way would be just to look at the source code (CTRL+U). Since you haven't told us what the site is, we can't really help you more than that!

The files are all there if you can access the site at the URL. There are site downloaders that will follow every link and download all pages and images, and retain the directory structure. From there you just upload it to the new server with the same structure, then point the URL in the correct place.

Thank you for helping me understand. The website is http://www.agea-bc.ca/

I used to be able to access a login directly from the website, but now I can't seem to find a login with host gator telling me account is suspended.

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Oh if they took the site down I don't see how you'll be able to get to the files at all, sorry I misunderstood the situation

LOL the url I linked to website agea-bc(dot)ca automatically came back as Contact Support after posting.

So I guess I'm pretty much screwed? I probably explained the situation poorly, not your fault.

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If there's no way to contact whoever is supposed to pay for hosting, probably screwed!

You can probably access most of it for now on google's cache, and manually import everything into a new page (type cache: before the www into your address bar)

https://archive.org/web/

You're welcome.

Cached site: AGEA - Bookkeeping and Accounting Services - Home

Looks like a pretty simple html type website if you ask me. You can probably build one that's miles better through a WYSIWYG type website.

Try www.weebly.com, it's not bad if all you need is a simple brochure-type website with a contact form. You'll likely start from scratch for SEO, but it's about making the best of the situation.

sites looks pretty simple.

at this point i would suggest to rebuild again as that would be easiest.

Usually we let the owner of the domain have their own hosting and they will be paying the bills as we just create the website and upload to the web host. usually godaddy for me.

rarely do i ever host a website for a client.

Go to wix.com You will be able to build a better site within a day. No experience needed. Then redirect your name to the new site.

Thanks for the responses guys! I'm pretty familiar with Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. But I'm probably going to just either make one from scratch (after I learn some coding) or make one on WordPress.

For my capstone at school, we were using Yoast to optimize SEO. The funny thing is, I was actually going to launch a full rebranding initiative, complete with new website. But there was so much slack in the project, that I allocated resources to doing something else. Now I really have to get it done.

Thank you once again guys!

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Looks like google only cached the home page, but web archive helped a lot. It was only after I started pulling the content, that I realized how much of a crappy website this was. Grammatical mistakes everywhere. Guess this is a good thing.

Thoughts on Weebly vs Wix vs Squarespace? I think Squarespace is too minimal (read: basic bitch) for this sort of business, I also hate how there's no save button. I've had extensive experiences with both Weebly AND Wix but that was a good 3 or 4 years ago.

Also which hosting companies do you guys recommend?

Any of those 3 will handle the hosting for you

I'm not making fun of the OP, or the person who created the webpage, but when I clicked on the link to the webpage in question, I thought of something along the lines of an early 1990s GeoCities webpage. :)

Yeah that's why sites like squarespace do so well now. They're basically the new Geocities.

You might as well get a new website lol.

Don't worry! No feelings were hurt. While GeoCities were before my time, I think the (terrible) design of the current website actually appears to our clients.

From my marketing capstone, it seems that older generations prefer the older look, as they are more likely to distrust or dislike modern and sleek designs.

All of our clients are baby boomers who own SMEs, while we're looking to diversify, we also don't want to hurt our existing brand image through a modern design.

The business owner is very adamant on working with people that don't cut corners as integrity is one of her key values. It seems like it's more difficult to find these kind of people amongst millennials and gen y.

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Why is the owner hiring you to do this? Aren't you a millennial? :troll:

(I'm kidding.) Good luck! :)