Support for Websites Your Developer Abandoned

Step one: find out what you actually own

When a developer disappears, the first job is to map the pieces. A website is really three things: the domain name (registered with a registrar), the hosting (the server the site lives on), and the website itself (files and database). Email is often a fourth piece, tied to the same domain.

We look up the domain's registrar and nameservers, find which company hosts the site from its IP address, and check where email is handled from the MX records. That tells us who to contact and how hard recovery will be. If the domain is registered in your name or your company's name, you are in a strong position. If the developer registered it in their own name, we help you recover it through the proper process.

Recovering the domain

The domain is the most important piece, because it controls the website and the email. For .uk domains, Nominet keeps a register of each domain's registrant, and if that is you or your business, you can use their process to regain control with proof of identity even if the registrar account was set up by someone else. For .com and other domains, the registrar has its own process, usually needing proof of identity or business ownership. Once access is back, we turn on two-factor authentication, set the domain to auto-renew and make sure renewal reminders go to an address you check. See domain and DNS support.

Recovering the hosting and website

If the hosting account is in your name, the host can usually reset access for you. If it is part of the developer's reseller account, the host may still help once you prove the site is yours, or we can take a copy of the site and move it to hosting you control. See website migration support.

With hosting or file access, we can restore an admin login to WordPress by creating a new administrator through WP-CLI or phpMyAdmin, then remove the old developer's accounts, change passwords, rotate the security keys in wp-config.php, and check for leftover access such as FTP accounts, SSH keys and maintenance plugins that allow remote login.

Bringing an abandoned site up to date

Abandoned sites are usually years behind. We take a full backup and work on a staging copy, then:

• Update WordPress core, theme and plugins in safe steps
• Upgrade PHP to a supported version (see PHP version upgrade)
• Replace abandoned or nulled plugins, which are a common source of malware
• Scan for malware and unknown admin users
• Fix SSL, contact forms and anything that quietly stopped working

We also look at whether the theme was custom-built and how it was put together. Sometimes a developer modified a commercial theme directly instead of using a child theme, which means updating it would wipe their changes. We spot that before updating and move the changes somewhere safe.

Keep it, fix it or rebuild?

Once we can see the site, we give you an honest view. Most abandoned sites can be cleaned up and kept. Some are built on something so old or so custom that patching them costs more than starting again. If that is the case we will say so, and a rebuild would be quoted separately. Either way, nothing is deleted until you have a working replacement, and you keep a full copy of the old site and its content.

Cost and ongoing support

Recovery and catch-up work is £45 an hour + VAT, 30-minute minimum then 15-minute blocks. We will tell you how long we expect it to take once we have mapped your setup. After that, our monthly plans keep the site updated, backed up and monitored from £25 a month + VAT, with logins and documentation held so you are never locked out again. Get in touch.

What it costs

Support plans from £25 a month + VAT, or £45 an hour + VAT for one-off fixes. Pick a plan if you want it looked after every month, or pay by the hour for a one-off job.

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