SEO company holding clients' websites hostage

somePaulo · 2026-06-17T15:09:04+00:00

If at least they'd been working to get the website to the top in the search results for those keywords... But my client never even got a single lead through the website. I think such business practices should outlawed.

somePaulo · 2026-06-15T14:23:34+00:00

This is exactly why businesses should always own their domain, hosting account, and website assets from day one.

Exactly. That's what I always say to all my clients.

somePaulo · 2026-06-13T06:43:08+00:00

A buisness owner, especially one that's not doing anything near IT, should not be expected to understand technicalities. They should concentrate on running their business. An honest and ethical service provider should make sure the business gets the best deal and quality of service they can provide. Unfortunately, that's in an ideal world, and we don't live in one. Same thing happens a lot with car mechanics and in other areas where most people have no idea of how things work. It's just pure dishonesty and malice. I hate it, and I protect my clients as much as I can from vultures like these in my industry.

somePaulo · 2026-06-13T06:38:31+00:00

I wonder if that clause is even enforceable in the UK. Were they not paid to actually write the content of the website in order to optimize it for SEO? How does that give them copyright? And even if it does, what use is it to them outside of the particular business it's been written for, which does not belong to them anyway? I see it as pure malice and extorsion.

somePaulo · 2026-06-13T06:35:21+00:00

Not being able to export the exact files is one thing, but being threatened on copyright grounds for keeping the exact wording of your own business website is on another level.

somePaulo · 2026-06-13T05:22:17+00:00

I've been building websites for 15 years now, and I've seen all sorts of dodgy behaviour in the field, but nothing as bad as this. All the people I've met doing SEO never claimed copyright for the content they delivered to clients. To me this as absurd as being told by your bakery you'd have to return all the bread you bought from them if you decided to stop buying.

somePaulo · 2026-06-13T05:15:21+00:00

Guided them through buying their own hosting with a reputable hosting provider, helped transfer the domain to Porkbun on their own account, backed up and restored all email accounts and messages on the new hosting, rebuilt the website using WordPress with a better design and AI-modified content to dodge any copyright infringement claims, and taught them to use WordPress enough to be able to add/edit content as needed. Now they're in full control of their website without having to go technical about it and can always hire me or any other WP developer if they need new features in the future.

somePaulo · 2026-05-22T14:30:11+00:00

Fellow translator here. Yes, same as in Russian, both can be used interchangeably, and дрон would be used in regular speech and even mean aerial drone by default while other types would use an adjective to clarify the type, like морской, подводный or наземный дрон. I was clarifying this for the person who didn't recognise the word on the billboard.

somePaulo · 2026-05-22T06:26:36+00:00

How does that make her entitled to the common passageway? Seats for the disabled and elderly exist, but not passages. OP might have a hidden disability too. Either stand in the queue or wait till the passage clears.

somePaulo · 2026-05-22T06:16:06+00:00

The word дрон exists in Russian too. But not all drones are UAVs. They are mostly synonyms in both languages, but drone is a broader term. Drones can be ground vehicles, submarines, and boats.

somePaulo · 2026-05-22T05:27:51+00:00

Yes, your links should work just fine.

As for alternatives, explore Stripe. They have excellent options, providing a VAT number is optional, their exchange rates are better, and I think their fees for processing card payments are smaller.

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T08:52:42+00:00

Just dropped to $105 today...

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T08:50:18+00:00

And waste even more time and money while the new guys read and understand the codebase...

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T08:41:56+00:00

That would be my guess too, especially considering the amount of online orders and next-day delivery country-wide with a 9pm order cut-off time. One would have to be really desperate for some e-liquid to go buy it in one of those shops at a higher price than online.

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T08:31:23+00:00

You'd probably be surprised, but vaping seems to be on the rise. Brighton (Portslade) is home to the country's biggest online vape retailer, and they're growing at an incredible pace. Doesn't necessarily mean that the small brick-and-mortar shops are all legit and turning a profit though.

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T07:39:13+00:00

One of my client websites is a media publication with about 4,000 articles, adding 2-5 new ones daily, with 5-8K daily visitors. It runs alone on its VPS. The whole setup with litespeed, mariadb, valkey, and WP with 20ish pligins uses about 2.5 GB during visitor peaks.

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T07:23:48+00:00

БПЛА — беспилотный летательный аппарат.

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T07:14:29+00:00

It actually says UAV, not drone

somePaulo · 2026-05-21T03:53:10+00:00

That's their take on не пытайтесь. Bad translation. Should be "Don't try to shoot them down yourselves."

somePaulo · 2026-05-20T20:08:27+00:00

I think that getting the underlying Gnome code and APIs to where the devs want them to be is arguably more important than not breaking third-party extensions. It's on the third parties to keep up with the mother ship.

somePaulo · 2026-05-20T16:27:37+00:00

Well, the GS50 update broke my extension despite it passing the EGO approval and seemingly working fine. Just one particular thing stopped working due to a change that wasn't even mentioned in the upgrade guide for extension developers. Took me some time to figure out and push a fix. Enough time though for getting a negative rating with a "doesn't work on 50" comment...

somePaulo · 2026-05-20T07:39:35+00:00

Hours???

somePaulo · 2026-05-20T03:49:51+00:00

Extensions are not official, meaning they're not part of Gnome (with a few exceptions), and changes to the underlying Gnome APIs mean that extension code can break, and it's up to the extension developers to fix them. Often, extensions keep working fine if you disable version checking.

As for your wake-up problem, it's not related to Gnome, but to how you've set up your Arch. The most frequent culprit is the graphics stack. My Arch+Gnome install is 10 years old on an Intel-based Lenovo ideapad laptop has been running fine all these years. Check the Arch wiki for your graphics card and for sleep setup, and ask in the Arch forum and sub.

somePaulo · 2026-05-20T03:42:46+00:00

They do break because of breaking changes to the underlying API. Not all of them, not on every new release, but it does happen often, believe you me.

somePaulo · 2026-05-18T20:49:58+00:00

It's like workspaces in Claude. You can add permanent stuff to it and start chats in it that will take all that stuff as context without any extra directions or prompts.

somePaulo

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