Is my web design company screwing me?

So my company has an older website and we manually go in and update available homes for sale. Long story short, suddenly it isn't working and the web design company we use is claiming the following: we are going to have to re-write the code for the backend on this one. The PHP is failing when you enter new properties and there is no longer a fix for it since it is so old. It will probably take about nine hours, so around $990.

Is this true? Why would it randomly fail? For reference, the website was created in 2010 (we're not talking about 1994 here...) Are they just trying to get us to update our website? I only am asking because I'd rather go with a completely new company and new site for $25,000+ than pay them $1000 to update a single page!

 

PHP has released new versions since 2010 and deprecated certain features. So what may have worked back then may not work today. There is a definite possibility of truth there. (You can find others on this board complaining that there older PHP code no longer works properly with newer versions of PHP.) It would be difficult to say how many hours it would take to fix this, but I would think 9 hours would be a long time for a single page. But I really have no idea since I haven't seen your code.

And I think $25,000 would be a lot to spend and you may (or possibly not) find a much, much cheaper option available and suitable for your needs if you search for "php real estate scripts" or "php realtor script" or something similar and then have it or its theme customized to your needs. So do a little searching before deciding what to do. You may save quite a bit of money if you can find something that meets your needs.

Can anyone recommend any real estate/home listing scripts to the original poster?

 

I just spent $150 to upgrade my affiliate program software. It was all because it was time to update the PHP version on my server. The old aff. program just quit working after the update. Eventually, everything gets outdated and needs a face lift.

You still may want to bargain with them before paying them.

 

The year 2010 is so ancient, an upgrade for $990 is cheap and 9 hours is quick. Not only you will get a working site, but also your server and data will be secured. Earlier this year I upgraded a site I developed in 2011 because I concern about security, not because the site is failing. You need to plan a periodical upgrade to your site.

Like others have suggested, there had been many upgrades ever since then: various Apache modules, MySQL versions, PHP versions, etc. You can get your website working without an upgrade if your website is the only one running on your server, but it will be challenging (and costly) to find such an ancient version of Apache/MySQL/PHP.

For your info, PHP version 7 is coming so be prepared for the next upgrade, probably in 3 years time.

 

Since only one page is affected it leads me to believe that each page may be it's own script. Even if a PHP function was deprecated it most likely wouldn't take 9 hours to fix it. And even if it did take 9 hours $100/hour may seem appropriate but I bet you, you could find someone who could get it done quicker for less. Personally, without knowing much about your web site, it sounds like a bunch of bs. But anyway...you are willing to pay $25k for a completely new web site...so who cares about $900 to get your web site back to order and working.

 

thanks for all of your responses!!!! we went ahead and did the update!

 

Interesting choice going with the upgrade, I hope it was the right one