Luboš Hilgert/ developer
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↳ Taking over a website from a previous supplier

Your site was built by someone who no longer answers.

I'll take it over, fix it and look after it. But before anyone can start working on it, one thing has to be clear: who owns the domain, where the hosting runs and who holds the access. I'll help you put that together for free.

Send me your site's address How it works
↳ Sound familiar?

Four situations I deal with most often.

Whichever one you're in, there's nothing unusual about it. These situations usually only surface the moment something on the site needs changing.

  1. 01

    The supplier stopped responding

    The company or person who built the site stopped getting in touch. The site still runs, but nobody touches it and it's unclear what happens when anything needs changing.

  2. 02

    The person who knew it has left

    The site was looked after by a colleague or an acquaintance who's no longer with the company. The access went with them and today nobody knows where anything runs or who's being paid for it.

  3. 03

    Something happened

    The site stopped working, or the hosting is reporting malicious code. You need someone to look at it now and tell you how things really stand.

  4. 04

    You'd rather deal with it directly

    Your site is managed by a larger supplier and you'd rather talk straight to the person who actually works on it. Not because anything went wrong - you just want a shorter route.

↳ First step, free

First we work out who holds the key to which door.

Without the domain, the hosting and the admin you can't do anything with a site at all - not maintain it, not move it, not even shut it down. With sites inherited from a previous supplier, this is usually the hardest part of the whole takeover.

  1. 01

    We list what belongs to the site

    Domain, hosting, the site's admin, mailboxes, and possibly analytics or a payment gateway. I'll send you a list where you just fill in what you know - and above all what you don't.

  2. 02

    I dig up whatever can be dug up

    From public sources I'll find out which registrar holds the domain, and usually where the site runs too. Whose name it's in may not be public - that often turns up in old invoices or in the e-mail address the domain notices go to.

  3. 03

    I'll point you to how to get it

    For each thing you're missing, I'll write down where to get it: whether it's enough to write to the supplier, or whether it's handled by the domain registrar and the hosting company. And what to have ready for it - usually an old invoice, or the e-mail address the domain notices go to.

No commitment

This part costs nothing and commits you to nothing - I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Once you have the site under control, then we can talk about what to do with it next. And you can manage it without me too: the list we put together is yours and will serve anyone who takes the site over.

↳ Second step - website audit

What isn't working on the site and in what order to fix it.

The first step deals with access. The €125 audit deals with the whole site: load speed and how much data comes down, images, heading structure, search titles, links, contact details and the paths a visitor takes to do what you want them to do. Every finding says what's happening, what it costs you and what to do about it. If the report isn't useful to you, you don't pay for it.

Sample Excerpt from a report - fictional company

1. Summary

  • The contact details on the site contradict each other. The Contact page carries three different phone numbers, and the e-mail link points to a different address than the one written next to it.
  • The homepage weighs 14 MB. Of that, 12 MB is a video above the footer that downloads in full straight away - and doesn't play on mobile anyway.
  • The photos in the header are inserted as backgrounds, not as images. They can't be given alt text, so image search won't find them.
  • The main heading on every page is your logo instead of the page title. On the About page, Google therefore reads the company name as the main heading.
  • The homepage title is just the company name, 14 characters - it doesn't say what you offer. Another 31 pages have titles under 30 characters; a search result fits roughly 55 to 60, so that space goes unused.
  • The site structure and the copy are fine, and no link leads nowhere. There's nothing to rebuild here, these are targeted fixes.

2. Critical - fix now

2.1 The e-mail in the contacts leads somewhere other than it says

Problem
The Contact page shows an address on your own domain, but the link underneath points to a different domain that doesn't accept mail. If someone clicks the e-mail and writes, that message never reaches you.
Impact
You won't even find out that someone tried to reach you. The same dead address is also written into the structured data on every page - which is where search engines take it from as the company's official contact.
Fix
Fix the link on the Contact page, and the same address in the SEO plugin settings.

3. Fixes

3.1 Header - rebuild the carousel

Today
Four rotating slides, each printing its own caption as a first-level heading. Together that makes fifteen of them on the homepage. And the captions don't say what the company does.
Proposal
One fixed opening screen: a single heading naming what you sell, a lead paragraph under it and two buttons. Next to that, a photo of the product in action - you already have those, they're just hidden as backgrounds.

5. Summary

The order I'd tackle it in - at the top the things that stop people reaching you, at the bottom those about visibility and impression.

  1. Unify the contact details and fix the e-mail address nobody can write to today.
  2. Tame the video - lazy loading, compression, a static image on mobile.
  3. Rewrite the homepage title and go through the ten most important pages.
  4. Fix the heading structure - move the logo out of H1 into a regular element. One change, effect across the whole site.
  5. Rebuild the header and give the photos alt text.

Sample based on a fictional company. A real report runs 4 to 8 pages depending on the size of the site and the number of findings; you get it as a PDF as well.

↳ What the audit covers
  • Titles and descriptions that show up in search
  • Pages competing against each other in the results
  • Heading structure - whether it tells you what the page is about
  • Contact details - whether the addresses match and the e-mail can arrive at all
  • Forms and the whole path to submitting an enquiry
  • Load speed and how much data comes down, especially on mobile
  • Images and video - alt text, formats and what's slowing things down needlessly
  • Broken links, redirects and missing files
  • Text readability, line length and contrast
  • Filters, search and sorting - whether they actually work
  • Links to an e-shop or your other domains
  • Security - separately at the end of the report

The audit looks at the state of the site - how it's built, how fast it runs and whether everything on it works. It isn't a marketing strategy: you won't find keyword research, a content plan or a competitor analysis in it. The report also covers what's fine on the site, so you know what not to touch - and if it turns out the site just needs maintaining and doesn't need rebuilding at all, I'll tell you that.

↳ What it costs

The first step costs nothing.

I don't charge for helping you get your bearings in your own site - without that there's no moving forward anyway. Only what comes afterwards is paid for.

Mapping out the access What belongs to the site, who holds it, how to get to it. No commitment
free
Website audit Written report and PDF - what slows the site down, what puts visitors off, what to fix first and what can wait
€125
If the audit gives you nothing, you don't pay for it You don't have to justify it. Just tell me and I'll cancel the invoice.
guarantee
Monthly maintenance after takeover Updates, backups, security, uptime monitoring
from €15 / month
Fixes and changes Cleaning up a compromised site, extra development, changes beyond maintenance
€50 / hour

For fixes I always send you an estimate of the hours upfront and bill only what I actually deliver. Package details are on the complete website maintenance page, and the full price list is here.

Send me your site's address

↳ Why I'm the one who won't vanish

Arrangements, not promises.

Anyone can write that they're reliable. So here are four things, and how each one is actually set up.

  1. 01

    The domain stays yours

    The domain is registered to you, not to me - that's the crucial part, because without it the site isn't going anywhere. The hosting runs on my server, but the site, its content and the database are yours, and you can take them elsewhere whenever you like.

  2. 02

    You get it in writing

    After the takeover I'll send you a handover document: where everything runs, who holds the domain and the hosting, when what gets paid, where the backups are. One file you keep on hand - and one your next supplier can work from too.

  3. 03

    I answer the phone and write back

    No ticketing system and no being passed between people. You call me directly, you write to me directly. When I can't take the call, I'll get back to you.

  4. 04

    Leaving with no strings

    When you end the arrangement, you get a backup of the site and the database - everything needed to run it somewhere else. No notice period, and no stalling on my part. The domain and the admin are yours the whole time, so there's nothing for me to hold back.

↳ FAQ

What you usually ask me.

The questions that come up almost every time a site changes hands. If yours isn't here, write to me →

01I know nothing at all - who built the site, where it runs, who pays for the domain. Where do I start?
Right here. This is the most common starting point, and it's exactly why the first step costs nothing. You send me the site's address, I dig up what I can from public sources, you supply old invoices or e-mails - and together we put together a list of who holds which keys. Only then does it make sense to work out what to do with the site next.
02What if we can't get the access?
It depends on whose name the domain is in. If it's registered to you or your company, it can be moved under your control at the registrar even without the supplier's cooperation - you just need to prove you're the registrant. If it's in their name, it only works by agreement, or what's left is building the site on a new domain and restoring the content from public web archives, if the site is there. I'll find out which registrar holds the domain and tell you straight away which of those situations you're in.
03What does the paid audit add over that first step?
The first step is about making it possible to work on the site at all - that means access. The €125 audit is about something else: whether the site does what it's supposed to. I go through it both as a visitor and as a developer, measure speed, check contact details, forms, copy and search titles. It's a technical inspection of the site's condition, not a marketing strategy - keyword research and content plans aren't part of it. The result is a written report and a PDF where every finding says what's happening, what it costs you and what to do about it.
04How long does the audit take and what do I get?
Usually a few working days. You get a report in plain English plus a PDF: a summary in a few bullets, the critical items first, then fixes, and finally the order I'd tackle them in. No scores and no charts - just specific things and what to do with them.
05What if the audit doesn't tell me anything useful?
Then you don't pay for it. If the report isn't useful to you, or you don't find anything in it you'd want to address, just tell me and I'll cancel the invoice. You don't have to justify it and I won't argue about it. The way I see it, if the audit gave you nothing, there's nothing for me to charge for.
06Do I have to carry on after the audit?
No. The report is yours and it's written so that someone other than me can work from it. If you decide to have the fixes done elsewhere, or to leave them for now, that's fine and nothing else happens.
07What if you find the site is in a terrible state?
I'll tell you, and spell out what that actually means - whether it's small stuff or a fundamental problem. And if it turns out rebuilding the site makes more sense, I'll say that too. The audit gives you the picture; what you do with it and who does the fixing is then up to you.
08Will you leave me the access, or keep it to yourself?
The domain stays registered to you - that's the crucial part, because without it the site isn't going anywhere. The site itself and its content are yours, you have access to the admin, and the hosting runs on my server where I look after it. You can ask for a backup and take the site elsewhere at any time. That's the main difference from website rental, where the site belongs to me - here you own it and I just look after it.
09Can you take over a site that isn't on WordPress?
Yes. Besides WordPress I look after custom-built PHP sites, typically in Nette. With very old or unusual setups I'll tell you straight after a first look whether I can handle it, or whether it's more honest to send you elsewhere.
10What if the site is compromised - do you handle the clean-up too?
Yes. The procedure is to clean the site, find out how they got in, and close that way off - otherwise it comes back in a few weeks. That includes checking whether the site is still flagged as dangerous somewhere. This is work billed by the hour, so I'll send you an estimate upfront.
11How much is the monthly maintenance after that?
From €15 a month for a smaller site. That covers updates, backups, uptime monitoring and security. I'll give you the exact figure once I know what the site actually involves. Package details are on the complete website maintenance page →
12What if I want to move elsewhere later on?
You get a backup of the site and the database, everything needed to move it, with no conditions and no notice period. The domain is registered to you the whole time, so the site just needs uploading to the new hosting and the domain pointing at it. Nothing here ties you down.
13Do you do this for sites built in Elementor, Divi or on Wix?
Sites in Elementor and Divi I take over routinely. Wix, Webnode and similar platforms are a different matter - the site lives inside their system and can't be moved elsewhere, nor properly worked on from the outside. There I'll tell you what can realistically be done, including the option of rebuilding the site somewhere else.
↳ The first step

Send me your site's address. The rest is on me.

I'll get back to you as soon as I can with what I managed to find out about the site and what else we'll need. Right now I don't need anything more than the address and a way to reach you.

Send me an e-mail or give me a call - both work equally well.

Email me at [email protected] Call me at +420 604 254 514

By submitting the form you pass me your contact details so I can deal with your enquiry. After one year I delete them. Details in the privacy policy →

Don't have a site yet, or is the current one beyond repair? Take a look at website rental →