Unethical Web Design Practices

[FGTH]

One of my old clients hired a guy (John DiBartolo) to maintain her site.

The guy changes the "by line" to take credit for the design/development/etc... for the site. I've asked him to either change the by line back to what it was orginally or take it out completely but he refuses.

I've also contacted my old client, but she doesn't seem to care or rather is just not interested.

He also added links to his other sites in hidden links on the bottom of the homepage without the owner's knowledge.

As a consequence to this guys actions, I've already seen the site drop in rankings from #1 in Google and Yahoo for the relevant keywords.

I've looked at John DiBartolo's company Web site and it looks like a high school project done with FrontPage and Flash "weberserk DOT com"

It's not worth the effort to take legal action.

Anyone come across similar buggers? What did you do to reach resolution short of legal action?

[DaveyBoy]

I hate when people do that mate, it's happened to me before. Doubt there's really anything you can do about it without making your ex-client see that he's taking advantage of her and by doing so is actually affecting her rankings / sales.

Just because he maintains the site, tweaking things here and there doesn't mean he's entitled to remove all traces of the original designer.

[FGTH]

Been doing reserach and there's a $500 USD fine for each instance of deliberate deceptive marking. What sucks is the government would get the money and not me.

[imaginemn]

Originally Posted by FGTH

Been doing reserach and there's a $500 USD fine for each instance of deliberate deceptive marking. What sucks is the government would get the money and not me.

That mostly applies to "bait and switch" tactics. Not what you are talking about. If the owner doesn't care then you are probably out of luck. They don't have to give you credit for the design if they paid you and it wasn't in a contract or some type of agreement stating that they would either provide a link or design credits on their site. They hired you to provide a service and they paid you.

It's typical for the "webmaster" to have their link there. Does it actualy say "website designed by . . ."? You don't have the right for them to remove their link just because you designed it. They did all the work programming the site and making it functional. There has been many times that I had to re-design a design provided from a design firm because it wasn't practicle or just too difficult to program a particular design.

[FGTH]

I designed and developed the code by hand. My ex-client decided to hire some bugger to save money. As a consequence, the guy changed the by line to state "Developed by {his company name}". None of the code or design was developed by him. His only contribution to the site was the "by line" modification.

What's more troubling is the hidden text he buried on the homepage linking to other sites he built. Since he made the changes to this particular site, the SE rankings have been dropping... it used to be #1 on both Yahoo and Google for the important keywords.

I've spent enough time on this and have moved on... just signed a multi-project deal with an energy company in CT... onto bigger and better things.

It's sad when you work so hard to achieve success for a client and then they go against your advice just to save a $100.

Thanks for all the feedback.

BTW, the "designer's" name is John DiBartolo running some shady operation called weberserk or strong sword out of New York.

[DaveyBoy]

I'd still love to catch him out on it though.

[waffles]

I'd fire him on the spot. The client still has acess to the online material, right? Just go in and change it. I'd do it for free. Change the passwords so he can't get back in and don't let him near my stuff again.

[DaveyBoy]

I dunno if he still has FTP info, if he does then it's easy to fix surely lol