July 2026 | Nextworks
If you are hiring a web developer to build or update your web site, it's important that you take some precautions.
Many web developers don't understand how internet traffic works. Sophisticated web sites such as Amazon.com are constructed by software engineers who certainly know internet fundamentals. However, most small business web developers are not software engineers. Their expertise is graphic design.
When you give a web developer access to your web site, they can break your internet traffic such as email, remote connections, phones, cloud services, and so on. From our experience, this happens all too often.
Arm yourself with knowledge to protect your organization before working with a web developer.
Here are 3 components to consider.
Your domain name (for example, coffee-cove.com) is purchased from a registrar, such as GoDaddy. Your domain name is your property, but you must pay an annual fee with a registrar to maintain ownership. You can transfer your domain name to any registrar of your choice. You don't even have to use your domain name. It might be something you purchase for future use or as an investment.
💰 Purchasing domain names can be as inexpensive as a few dollars to millions of dollars.
DNS (Domain Name System) is like an address book of the internet. When you type a friendly name like "coffee-cove.com" into your browser, your computer doesn't actually understand words — it needs a numerical address (called an IP address, something like 142.250.190.14) to reach the website's server. DNS is the global system that automatically translates those easy-to-remember domain names into the correct IP addresses.
DNS is used for much more than just the web. DNS is used for all aspects of your organization's presence and use of the internet, including email.
Servers that manage DNS are called nameservers.
A web server is a computer (or software) that stores websites and delivers their pages to your browser when you request them. When you type a website address or click a link, your browser sends a request over the internet; the web server receives it, finds the requested files (HTML, images, videos, etc.), and sends them back so the site loads on your screen.
Most registrars also host nameservers performing DNS functions for you. These two services are consolidated with the same company most of the time, but they don't need to be. However, it's convenient to do so.
Taking it a step further, your registrar might also provide web servers. The server hosting your web site is from a different pool of cloud servers that are dedicated for this task.
There is no technical disadvantage for using the same company to host your nameserver and web server. However, separating your web hosting provider does provide a layer of additional security as we will discuss.
To work on your web site, your web developer needs access to your web server. (Or they may wish to setup a new web server.) This is all they should have access to.
Your web developer will likely ask for access to your register or DNS. This allows them to manage or redirect traffic to your new web site. You are handing them the keys to the city. There are things that can wrong here which can cause significant disruption to your organization.
We won't cover every possible scenario here, but this common example illustrates the risk:
Your web developer has their preferred web hosting environment. This is where they wish to build (or move) your web site. This is certainly fine and is recommended.
The web hosting company they prefer also is a registrar and/or does DNS. They elect to migrate all functions to the new web host, even though it's not necessary. Because the web developer often has limited DNS know-how, when they migrate these services to the new provider important DNS data is lost. The web developer is focused on web traffic alone. Your email stops working. Your phones go offline. Remote employees can't connect to the office.
Often the new hosting account is owned by the web developer, not you. Not only do they now control all your internet traffic, but they also now own your domain name. Yikes.
Include your IT provider. Your IT provider can make the necessary DNS changes that your web developer needs to move your web site to their preferred web server. Their access should be limited to web hosting only. It's often that simple.
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