Word of warning for those who have their own websites

SexyGreyFox · 18 Mar 2007 at 16:43

A mate of mine has a website for his shop - www.cookies.co.uk
It sells disco, lighting and audio/karaoke discs and its quite a big business and of course it works in a similar way to OCUK's site where you can search and buy online.
On friday morning there were errors with the server and later they told him everything was fixed. He logged onto his site and nothing was there.
He rang them up and they told him to upload his site but because its 'complicated' he said that they promised him that they backup up their servers everynight and its in his Terms & Conditions.
The hosting Company said that they don't do any backing up but he has 'proof' from an email which was sent.
(Yeah, I Know, we can all easily alter T&C's and print them out).
He obviously doesn't know where he stands now and he said it cost him 1000's to set the website up. Theres also the problem of people who have ordered stuff.

Beware of your Hosting Company.

Dunks · 18 Mar 2007 at 16:44

He did make his own backups I hope :\

SexyGreyFox · 18 Mar 2007 at 16:45

DunK1 said:
He did make his own backups I hope :\

He said he was told by the Hosting Company that he didn't need to because they backup every night.

~>Dg<~ · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:01

back ups no mater what anyone says.

mr tommo · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:02

Totally ot:

oooh cookies.. Is the Silver Ferrari 360 spider his? I saw it outside the shop the other day. Ive seen a TVR Tuscan and BMW z8 regularly parked outside too. Lucky Git.

Mik3 · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:03

He has no back-ups of his site :eek:

Man that's ridiculous :/

To lose an entire site is horrible, I suggest he contact the host and try to retrieve the data from the HDD.

SexyGreyFox · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:07

I don't know much about this but my site is easily backed up because its a load of pages done in Frontpage.
He might be talking nonsense but he said that SQL/Database websites (eg OCUK) aren't as easily backed up because everythings interlinked with other things.

Jumpingmedic · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:07

He'll have to put up a quick apology notice on the website and set up an e-mail/phoneline for irate customers and get the lawyers onto the company quickly. Either to scare them into "miraculously" finding out they do have a backup, or to sue for compensation. That's assuming he really does have the proof he says he does.

Databases are as easy to back up as any other webpage file. They may not work offline (although they should), but even if they don't work as webpages you can at least still access the stored data. But don't kick your friend while he's down.. wait till this all blows over then point that out.

paradigm · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:09

Is it part of a franchise or is it just co-incidence there is a disco lighting and sounds store called "cookies" in Macclesfield :confused:

daz · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:10

How much was he paying for his hosting?

You have to be very careful if you are purchasing hosting that your entire business will rely upon. A Service Level Agreement means nothing if the company behind it isn't going to honour it, and if you haven't got the legal muscle to fight them and get some recompense, you're better off moving on and learning an expensive lesson.

Mik3 · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:11

dmpoole said:
I don't know much about this but my site is easily backed up because its a load of pages done in Frontpage.
He might be talking nonsense but he said that SQL/Database websites (eg OCUK) aren't as easily backed up because everythings interlinked with other things.

A database driven site is easier to archive.

SexyGreyFox · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:17

paradigm said:
Is it part of a franchise or is it just co-incidence there is a disco lighting and sounds store called "cookies" in Macclesfield

Hmm, don't know.
There used to be one in Crewe called Cookies also that was nothing to do with him.
His second name is Cooke though and he used to be a Radio DJ.

Sone · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:19

mr tommo said:
Totally ot:

oooh cookies.. Is the Silver Ferrari 360 spider his? I saw it outside the shop the other day. Ive seen a TVR Tuscan and BMW z8 regularly parked outside too. Lucky Git.

z8 must have gone a few years ago, saw it gumball stickered up at one point. Did he do it?

paradigm · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:20

dmpoole said:
Hmm, don't know.
There used to be one in Crewe called Cookies also that was nothing to do with him.
His second name is Cooke though and he used to be a Radio DJ.

Seems its one and the same:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=cookies+macclesfield&meta=

First hit shows the location plus a link to www.cookies.co.uk.

How random!

Bean0 · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:21

My host uses CpanelX, I can click one button and have a full backup of my site including SQL, email etc in a ready made .tar.gz to download about 30secs later.

If the worst happens, I can upload this file, point CpanelX at it and it *should* rebuild the whole site. I haven't had to use it yet, but I imagine it does as it says on the tin.

Johnnytoxic · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:30

I backup my site into date folders whenever I change something on it. To have no backups of your site is just asking for trouble.

Vanilla · 18 Mar 2007 at 17:52

It's not only lack of backups but also staff making mistakes.

I had some relatively cheap hosting I kept a load of important stuff on. It was my backup in case my HD should die. Just the really important stuff.

Anyway, my HD died. I go to log onto my hosting and nada. Can't log in, kept trying for days and still nothing.

Turns out they had moved servers and somehow lost my stuff in the process.

Caused me untold grief.

stoofa · 18 Mar 2007 at 18:41

When I was using a very budget host they too said they backed everything up on a regular basis.
However their "Get out of jail card" was that although data was backed up they could never totally guarantee that data would be available and that it was the customers responsability to make sure they have a backup.

My current hosts are a little better but at the end of the day I'd still rather have a backup of my sites.
My databases are easily done with the MySQL Tools.
My PHPBB Forums are backed up with a single click.
My Wordpress Blog - couple of clicks.
My main website - done in FrontPage so I work on an offline copy anyway and upload.

Never reply on a host for backup of your website would be the best warning this thread could provide.

nikebee · 18 Mar 2007 at 19:26

dmpoole said:
I don't know much about this but my site is easily backed up because its a load of pages done in Frontpage.
He might be talking nonsense but he said that SQL/Database websites (eg OCUK) aren't as easily backed up because everythings interlinked with other things.

That's a load of tosh, I'm an SEO and programmer for a web design company in south Wales specialising in SQL Database programming, dynamic web sites and SEO... dynamic and database driven web sites are extremely easy to back up and infact no more difficult to backup than regular web sites.

SQL servers can be set up for replication and incremental database backups so there is no real excuse there :confused:

SexyGreyFox · 18 Mar 2007 at 19:49

nikebee said:
That's a load of tosh, I'm an SEO and programmer for a web design company in south Wales specialising in SQL Database programming, dynamic web sites and SEO... dynamic and database driven web sites are extremely easy to back up and infact no more difficult to backup than regular web sites.

SQL servers can be set up for replication and incremental database backups so there is no real excuse there

Thanks, I'll pass this information to him for the future.