i needed a site for my agency…so i have been approached by a guy who is saying that i just have to buy my domain name and he will build and host the site for free for 2 years or as long as the traffic remains less using his own AWS resources. will he have access to all the data of my site? what could go wrong? i am a noob so i dont know if i am being scammed or he is genuinely trying to help?
Yes.
Your site will be under control by this guy. You may have som difficulties to move your site to another host if you want. You may have to pay later if you want to move the site. Some sort of simple contract may be useful. What happens if…
Hard to say. This guy may be honest or have a hidden agenda. This guy maybe only want to create a portfolio and show what he can do. Ask him what’s in it for him.
If you can afford to loose the site, why not? You can go to another host and rebuild the site. So make sure that you have full control of your domain name and the ability to move to another host (point to another host).
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well explained…ill give it a shot. thank you so much.
and yeah 1 more thing…if it turned out to be a scam in any way, how would i be to save my site?
It depends how the site is built. But generally:
Ensure that all your content (images, text etc) also is on your computer. Easier to rebuild. Or write an agreement to get the code behind with regular intervals.
Or you can look at this as an experiment. Get experience how you should do next time.
How important it this site for you? How long time can you site be down before you suffer in some way?
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Just… be careful. If the host is going to “build and host” the site, and you dont have a contract… the host owns the copyright on content they create, not you. Those images and text are THEIRS, and taking and reusing it, even if the host acts in a scammy way, can land you in legal trouble.
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It sounds like this guy is going to lock you in to using his hosting and so be able to charge you an extortionate amount for hosting every year after the second year.
If it looks too good to be true . . . . .
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And make sure YOU own the domain name, not him. If he offers to buy the domain name and conveniently forgets to transfer it to you, that’s a sure sign of a scam. You could get comfortable with that domain name and then down the road he can charge you whatever price he might desire to sell it to you. If you have the domain name, all your code, and the password to access the files on the site, you can transfer to a different host without his agreement.
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You said he would host it for 2 years. What happens after 2 years? Did he name a price? What happens if your site ends up going past his AWS limits? I would get all that hashed out at the start no matter if it is free or not. It is just stupid not to.
Honestly, I wouldn’t bother with it. Just get a simple host, pay the 10-25 dollars a month and build your own site. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You could even do something like a WordPress or Wix site (even though I hate Wix as an advanced dev). That way you own everything, learn something and have complete control.
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