First, my sincere apologies if this is not in the right section. I have an idea for a website but I lack the programming skills to make it happen. I've hired a freelancer to develop the site, but I do not want him to know the site's concept (I'm paranoid about someone stealing my idea and beating me to the punch since, as I mentioned, I lack programming skills). The only problem is that the domain name would be a dead giveaway as it describes the concept. My current solution is to have him setup and install the site on a different domain, but on the same host as the final domain. How hard will it be for me to transfer the website to the new domain? Is there a way of "swapping" domain names that I own on the same host? For reference, it is a Joomla 1.5 website. Would it be easier if he just sent me all the files? Mind you, I don't know much about programming at all. Please help!
You would backup your site and download it to your PC, then upload it to the new site. You would need some minor tweaking at the new site to install joomla and setup any MySQL databases and the database usernames/passwords.
If you cannot trust sharing the plans with the freelancer you want to hire (or have hired?) perhaps you should be looking for someone else to design your site. If that person does not know what you want to do with your site, how do you expect him to design it well? You should be able to change the domain name with any respectable host though.
I totaly agree mabye go with a big programming company who will obviously have a rules agaisnt this sort of thing. Ross.