Grabbing a complete website.

[ajlelectronics]

I have a friend in France whose website is being held to ransom by his hosting company. I have offered to grab it and re-upload it, corrected to a new host. I can get into the DNS records to change them but I am having difficulty with the grab. I am using WinHTtrack website copier but I can't get the images. All the options are selected inthe control panel.

Website in question is https://www.ianrhu.com if anyone can help?

 

[Climber]

It's not worth grabbing. If you can change dns records just knock up a quick WordPress site and point the domain to it. That site will be doing the business more harm than good, and is likely the property of constant contact.

 

[ajlelectronics]

It's not worth grabbing. If you can change dns records just knock up a quick WordPress site and point the domain to it. That site will be doing the business more harm than good, and is likely the property of constant contact.

Probably fair comment, but the pictures are his, so I need those to build him a new site really.

 

[Seadog]

Doesn't he have the originals?

 

[ajlelectronics]

Doesn't he have the originals?

No, he had just abandoned everything believing that it was game, set and match.

 

[ukracer]

It's not worth grabbing. If you can change dns records just knock up a quick WordPress site and point the domain to it. That site will be doing the business more harm than good, and is likely the property of constant contact.

I am intrigued why the site would be doing more harm than good?

 

[Climber]

I am intrigued why the site would be doing more harm than good?

For a hundred reasons.

As an example, the only copy you see above the fold is the constant contact banner trying to sell people websites. It's hardly a good start. You land on a site expecting to book a B&B and the first thing the site does is try to get you to click away from the site.

 

[ajlelectronics]

I have found his Booking.com listing with more images than you can shake a stick at! So now I can build something to suit. One of the main reasons the original has to come down is the contact information. He doesn't use a landline anymore and it makes it seem as if he has gone out of business.

 

[Climber]

For a hundred reasons.

As an example, the only copy you see above the fold is the constant contact banner trying to sell people websites. It's hardly a good start. You land on a site expecting to book a B&B and the first thing the site does is try to get you to click away from the site.

Edit. Just had another look, there are a lot more than 100 things wrong with that site.

 

[Climber]

I have found his Booking.com listing with more images than you can shake a stick at! So now I can build something to suit. One of the main reasons the original has to come down is the contact information. He doesn't use a landline anymore and it makes it seem as if he has gone out of business.

The fact his prices page is a blank page also gives the same impression.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Edit. Just had another look, there are a lot more than 100 things wrong with that site.

I would be interested if you have time to list what you have found? It's all in horrible Javascript which irritates me.

 

[ukracer]

For a hundred reasons.

As an example, the only copy you see above the fold is the constant contact banner trying to sell people websites. It's hardly a good start. You land on a site expecting to book a B&B and the first thing the site does is try to get you to click away from the site.

Ah I understand now. Because of its design as opposed to the OP friends content.. Thanks.

 

[Climber]

I would be interested if you have time to list what you have found? It's all in horrible Javascript which irritates me.

It wouldn't really be worth listing all the things that are wrong with it. It's a free template from MySiteBuilder, through Constant Contact. Site builders like this are notoriously poor from a bloat (and therefore page speed) and SEO point of view. The site is also less than half finished, many of the images have no titles (again an SEO, and user experience issue), some pages are blank, and the copy is awful. If you can get the images from somewhere, I wouldn't bother saving any of the existing site at all. As you mentioned, the use of Javascript is unnecessary for such a site, and just over complicates it.

 

[Climber]

Ah I understand now. Because of its design as opposed to the OP friends content.. Thanks.

No, the content isn't up to scratch either, hence my advice to start again.

 

[ajlelectronics]

The other option I have is to just point it at his Booking.com site for the time being. Would I be being naive in thinking that I can just convert https://www.booking.com/hotel/fr/ianrhu.fr.html to an IP address and fill in his form at current host? How about the MX records, can that be easily pointed at a Hotmail.com? It is years since I did any of this stuff and wishing I hadn't offered now. ;-)

DNS Records
Record Type Host Name Value
A www 66.235.200.9
A @ 66.235.200.9
NS @ ehos608827.mercury.orderbox-dns.com
NS @ ehos608827.venus.orderbox-dns.com
NS @ ehos608827.earth.orderbox-dns.com
NS @ ehos608827.mars.orderbox-dns.com

 

[Climber]

As a quick fix i'd be tempted to point the domain at the booking.com page, and redirect any mail to the domain to a gmail account (in the domain registrars control panel). If ianrhu@gmail is available, that's a quick easy fix. That way, you don't need a hosting account at all, it can all be controlled by the domain registrar account. Then, take a deep breath and work out a proper plan.

 

[mtt.tr]

Edit. Just had another look, there are a lot more than 100 things wrong with that site.

My partner specialises in UX that website would make her most mad

 

[Climber]

My partner specialises in UX that website would make her most mad

We don't expect micro business sites to have amazing UX like a large corporation would (or should), because often they are built by the owners who seem to take a 'that's good enough', approach. That site builder is pretty bad though. As mentioned above, having the only copy above the fold trying to take the visitor to a third party site to sell them a website is about as bad as it gets.

 

[HughF]

Reminds me, I really need to re-do ours. I threw it together 15 years ago and we haven't changed it Not that it affects business much, our industry is so small.

 

[Climber]

Reminds me, I really need to re-do ours. I threw it together 15 years ago and we haven't changed it Not that it affects business much, our industry is so small.

The better your marketing, the less you need a website. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.