For the last couple of days, I have been trying to update a client’s wordpress website and I am encountering yet again the mother of all problems, the root of every headache when it comes to web design. I run across the issue every single time – whether I am moving a domain and corresponding website to a new server or trying to upgrade a premium wordpress plugin.
At the bottom of every complications, I find that 90% of the time, there is a set of username/email address and password combination that is either missing or incorrect.
This latest episode has been about trying to upgrade the wordpress Wishlist plugin , an extraordinary plugin for anyone trying to create a membership site. My client wanted some basic upgrades – the addition of comment sections to page templates and the addition of custom menus to the theme to take advantage of this wp3 feature – in addition to upgrading and plugins installed on the site. Sounds simple, right?
Not quite.
The Wishlist plugin is activated by the use of a license key and the captured email used at the time of purchase. Whatever previous flavor of web designer or administrator or account manager probably used their own. Now, a few years later, whomever initially installed Wishlist is long gone, the latest combination of people associated with the website don’t remember who actually bought and paid for the plugin and nowhere in the installation have I been able to find that information.
This is not an isolated case.
I just worked with a non-profit that didn’t know who initially registered the organization’s domain. After some investigating on my part I found out it had been the organization president two tenures ago. He was kind enough to allow me access to his Network Solutions account so that I could at the very least redirect the domain to the new nameservers.
OMG- domain management is always the worst. More often than not, citizens will allow a webhost to register their domain and not really grasp that setting up a website and registering a domain are 2 completely different processes that in essence have nothing to do with each other. The webhost is probably just doing the registration as a marketing gimmick or a courtesy. I have literally spent hours with the client to prompt a memory of a username of password.
Granted, most webhosts are pretty helpful with this information if the client is in good standing but if the account has lapse, it become a whole new kind of mess.
As a matter of protocol, I believe that anyone wanting to start a blog, setup a website, or register a domain should first setup an email address independent of their domain name or ISP to use for all registrations.
For example, if you are going to register pickadomain.com, you should first setup a master administrative email– maybe with gmail or hotmail– like pickadomain@gmail.com. This email address should only be used to archive username/password combinations and welcome emails from your webhost or godaddy services, information that might be important in the future. I do recommend that you refrain from using this administrative email for day-to-day correspondence.
This may sound very basic and I’m sure I am not the first person to think of this but, believe me, someone down the line will whisper a thank you and wish you godspeed for your good deed.
How do you deal with clients that can’t access all the necessary information to do your job?
