Web developer doesn’t want me to make changes

I work with a guy who likes to make changes to the sites I made as a whitelabel partner for him. He NEVER uses the correct blocks or layouts that I have set up so I always tell him to send me the changes he wants instead

Should at least give you editor access, if they’re worried. Might mess up a page but can’t tank the site

You could ask for the developer to create a separate login for you with limitations related to the changes you want to make. This gives you a bit of freedom and the web dev can take care of everything else.

There are two schools of thought about Wordpress. One is that at least 299 million of the 300 million Wordpress websites in the world today were created and updated entirely by do-it-yourselfers. The other is that only a highly trained and well-paid professional programmer should ever be allowed to log into Wordpress because otherwise the actual website owner will break everything, cause earthquakes, and scare the horses. Or something.

In my experience with at least 200 clients over the last 20 years they can usually learn to do everything they need to do in about half an hour. Blogging? Dead simple. Adding or editing products? A little harder but not much. Adding events? Almost as easy as blogging. Editing pages? As long as the developer/tech did a competent job building a page then a halfway-intelligent site owner can make simple modifications like updating content or replacing images.

The trick is that site owners have an active investment in their !#%%# public-facing branding. They're not going to wilfully deface their website anymore than they'd graffiti their own storefront or slash their own tires.

If they're not able to walk you through what changes you can make to your own website in a one-hour training session, then you should look for a company that can.

Can I really mess up the website

Sure, anything is possible. There are tons of ways to screw up a website. However, the whole point of WP is to make it easy to manage content on a website. Just editing pages is unlikely to break an entire site. Maybe screw up the layout on a page, but rarely the whole site.

Or does he want to remain in control and get paid for every small change we make?

This is the more likely scenario. If you don't have admin access to your site, you can't move the site without asking. You don't own your site, you're paying someone to use the site.

We generally maintain most of our client's sites, but every single one of them is given a full admin account. Many of them never use it, but they are welcome to do as much or as little as they want. It's their site after all.

Has anyone broke their website after getting control of their Wordpress?

We give our clients basic training on WordPress. We also tell them what stuff they shouldn't touch because it could actually break the site. Periodically, we'll have a client break something, but it's pretty uncommon. Even when they do, it's never a big deal to fix.

What’s the point of having a content management system if you can manage the content in the system?

At work we provide editor training and admin training, admins signup to a code of conduct that explains the risks involved in changing permalinks, adding plugins etc etc etc.

The CMS should enable authors and editors to create and edit content based on the themes templates or blocks etc built by the developers.

The CMS should also enable admins to look after admin functions like updating the CMS, plugins and themes, managing users, and editing any other admin features the developers have built.

Why might a dev do this?

1. They have a contract to keep the site running, and part of that is doing updates for you their customer.

2. They want to get more hourly work.

3. Their design is a brittle clusterf**k, they're ashamed of it, and they don't want anybody to shatter it by changing the size of an image or making a paragraph too long or something.

You should ask them their rationale for this policy ( don't accuse them of making a design mess obviously) and figure out how to work with them.

And, make sure they keep appropriate automated backups, so the consequence of an error on your part or theirs is manageable.

Why build a site on a Content Management System if you're not going to let the website owner manage their own content?

If they break it they pay for it to be fixed. Simple.

A lot of crap designers seem to think they have a right to block owners from accessing and using their property. It's crazy. And when that designer goes out of business, or dies, or whatever - then the owner is left screwed. I see it happen all the time.

Best thing you can do is send the dev a cease and desist from holding your data hostage. Get backups in place and you're all set. Find a new developer that's not a self absorbed noob.

I always advice clients to let me do the changes but if they insist, I hand over a login, take my company out of the footer and warn beforehand that if the website breaks that and I need to fix it, I will charge for it.

Normally what I do is create a short video explaining my clients how the can make small changes like editing text, headings, or changing images. For more complex work I ask them to send me the changes and I incorporate them for like a month after project completion.

The developer wants to keep control and force you to use their services so they can bill you.

Check your contract with the developer (assuming you created one). If the developer refuses to give you access then you may need to either look into getting lawyers involved or dumping them.

I really hope you are the actual owner of the your domain at least else you might lose the domain name as well.

The main purpose of WordPress is to make it easy for non-technical people to manage their website.

While more complex changes might require a developer, simple content editing (like changing photos or SEO as you mentioned) can/should be done by you, that's the whole point!

I'm a freelance dev and I'd always give my clients log in access to their sites, it's odd that your dev is not letting you do that.

And with WP's visual editing/previews, it's very hard to seriously mess up/destroy your site; and you can always restore a backup if you do.

Your web developer is an ass, and I say that as a web developer that provides support for over 600 WordPress sites. People break their sites, and I fix them every day. Your web developer should provide training for simple changes. You should have the login for your site; if you break things, he can revert the changes you made.

I come across many new clients who hire me because they feel that their current web developer has a god complex. Funny thing!! one site i took over and changed all the passwords that all related to god this and god that as passwords. lol.

He is right - If you upload images with different dimensions it can break the flow of the design.

But, it is your website so if that's what you want to do...

As a designer/developer, we always give site access to the client, it's THEIR site after all. Now i will also caveat that i have lots of clients that want to "do it themselves" but also don't know how to turn on their computers. But, WordPress is made to be easy to use for the non-technical person so mileage varies for the person doing the work. If they actually understand how websites work they are usually fine. Some though, they don't know how to use a microwave but saying otherwise... those are the ones that break their sites and need help fixing it.

I'd say at worse, you'll just do something inefficiently or in an unintended manner but the site will probably be fine.

If he really wanted to fix this problem, he could have just used a temporary login plugin with limited user roles for editing only. But no, he wants to be the boss.

Sounds like you need a new web developer. This is practically the point of WP, you shouldn't need to pay a developer to make simple page edits or seo edits if your comfortable with that kind of thing.

For editing articles you could get away with an editor account which would mitigate accidental damage but for SEO you probably need an admin acount.

Changing pix is not rocket science. Tell him you're an adult, wordpress is not brain surgery, and give you the dang log info.

Then change the password and fire the dev.

Have them create a staging environment that backs itself up. This way you can log into the staging site, make your changes and it doesn't affect the live website. When the developer is done doing whatever it is he's doing he can review your changes and push it to the live version.

Ask him to make a backup of your site and then give the logins so you can restore to a pre-changes version if you mess up real bad.

Talk to your boss. Honestly, this isn’t an issue you can resolve here. As others have stated, you have either an insecure site developer (hence the God complex) or a dishonest one.

You can get editor access and not risk the health of the site. Sure you could fuck up the page layout but I imagine you like your job and you will take precautions not to do that.

WP is a temperamental biotch. I understand his position as far the potential to break stuff but as a client, you should have at least some basic edit rights. Does anyone else aside from him have access?

In an ideal world, you can make changes without concerns because the developer understands the code's functionality. He actively utilizes Gutenberg, leveraging his knowledge to create custom blocks and implement template or block locking to safeguard important elements from accidental deletion. Alternatively, he may disable Gutenberg for non-blogging pages and put some custom fields in the legacy page editor, often with tools like ACF, enabling content editing without disrupting layout. If skilled, he may even decouple WordPress.
However, in reality, developers with a lack of experience work with Elementor and then request payment for block manipulation, neglecting factors like performance, maintainability, accessibility, and the necessity for genuine coding efforts.

I rarely saw this kind of approach: only in an old web agency and in very edge cases. Any decent web agency or freelancer should share with you a site guide on how you can manage your own website, change content, etc. If the website is well built, you will not break your website easily

Yes you can break it... But its easy to fix if u do.. Before you start, just download wp all in one migration, backup the site, then edit away. If things to wrong, just reload the backup.

you can ask clone the site on sub domain

Are you going to be frequently logging in and making edits or new posts?

If so, then I would reframe the ask from being “I want to make updates” to “can you create an editor access?”. This way, you only pay once for their time to build in safeguards and guardrails vs. having to pay each time if (and when) something is broken.

The only way you'll "break"' the site is if you go into the file editor and start changing code. Other than that, it's all frontend... if you mess something up and don't know how to change it back, you'll just have to pay him to change it...lol. He should definitely give you access! He has nothing to lose...

At the very least you should have an editor account so that you can write blog posts.

Personally, it's my belief that the purpose of having a content management system (ie WordPress) is to enable people to manage their own content.

You absolutely should be able to login to update pages.

The way I see it, if doing so messes up the display of that page, then that's on you as a user. You can hire them to fix it, if you mess it up.

But ultimately it is YOUR site. I would not feel comfortable with that kind of relationship with a website you own. You should have access.

If I were that developer I probably would not like giving you that control unless I don't plan to continue working on the website. A lot of people that I worked with who thought they knew how to make "simple" updates either inserted a lot of junk code (from copy and pasting) or modify the page enough that requires a database restore.

Has anyone broke their website after getting control of their Wordpress?

I do it all the time. But it's usually because code I've added in one of my plugins has a typo somewhere. That's what a staging server is for. ;)

That being said, WordPress is extremely non-techie user friendly... IF you set it up correctly. How badly you could potentially screw your site up is dependent upon how competent your developer is. If they've locked you out of anything that is potentially harmful, then there's probably very little damage you could do. If they haven't (or if they're in the idiotic habit of including an ass-ton of the layout code directly in their pages'/posts' content block)... it's anyone's guess.

It could be many things. Is he in house? Maybe he has an agreement that requires any changes to go through him.

If he’s more IT or Dev but not really Wordpress, he probably built the site in a crappy way and so any changes could break things.

Or he’s been burned in the past when he gave someone access and he just wants to keep his job. Chances are he thinks everyone is retarded.

"Wordpress" can mean just about any page builder and front end code, including people who use PHP in the editor. I have a few large commercial sites that include JSON in the FE editor (not recommended, but the guy who built them has some chops). So YES you can break it. A good developer will have a staging or dev site that you can login to and then can promote or sync changes once approved. That doesn't mean they will give you access.

Editor access is fine. Web design company here.

I always give my clients two logins. One admin and one editor. I recommend them to make changes from edit account so that there won’t be any major issue. I think every client should have their admin account. It’s them who owns the site. I don’t think developers should act like they own the website

A big issue is when unexperienced users make assumptions about how they think something works, but won't check on the front end to confirm all looks and functions as expected. If you break something and know immediately, then that's best. But t's easy to break something and not even realize it until much later. Can't say how many clients created a form and never configured it's notifications or test the form at all to ensure they get the result.

It sounds like you might not have a playground to play around in.

Do yourself a favor and set up a development server where you have free reign and answer your own questions

Yes website changes are very critical and any small change without testing can break things.

What you can do is learn and start with small steps by asking the developer to give you access and review changes for small changes only. Once he or she becomes comfortable with you editing the website, then you can go ahead with larger changes. You have to give someone confidence that you can do it by actually showing that you can do it.

You have the right if you are the owner of the website. But Why do you want to do all by yourself. You are a business man. You must focus on more productive stuff rather changing small things on your website.

Well, I myself as a freelancer and the place where I work considers customers our top priority. Giving a suggestion is another thing but not fulfilling the customer's requests sounds so unethical as they are investing their money and its their property now.

Considering the problems of developers that their clients may break the site, I apply few solutions in my case:

1. Understand the requirements of customer and provide separate credentials with proper limitations.

2. Maintains Weekly backups until the site is delivered and informs customers about it.

3. Providing some easily comprehensive documentation on how they can perform a certain task.

4. Giving them the freedom of 5 free revisions before the delivery of their site. They can plan the changes on their website by visiting the live domain and record the user experience.

If you paid for the website and it's not a subscription based thing, you should already have all the information required. WP administrative access, hosting access, the whole thing.

Then it's up to you to decide if you want to mess with the site or have the dev handle it. If you break it, the dev has every right to charge you extra to fix it.

At this point I have built more than 10 sites and worked on more than double this number and as a developer even I don't remember which block/component should go where so I don't expect my client to know that either

Clients upload 5 MB images that aren't sized right themselves then send me immediate call to action emails that the site is messed up for some reason, and that I need to fix it right away.

You don't know what you don't know and hopefully your web developer does know. Nothing in web dev or WordPress is simple.

Let them handle it.

Yup, editor role. Plus any good consultant should make sure backups are done regularly, weekly in most instances, preferably automatically to cover all types of clients.

Every time I've given full access to my users, random issues have popped up that have had pretty big visual impacts to their sites. It's always hard to fix (since I don't know what they changed without digging) and they just break it again.

Well SEO if your site really depends no it coul be a great mistake if you want to Collab with SEO the beat way Is to say him to install yoast imagen i dont know why you can't update

The web developer should make the theme where you can go in and change some simple things like the content, pictures, etc. If he refuses to give you the login to your WP site, you could do two of things, 1) use FTP and edit the pages (if he has created them) if you are comfortable with coding or 2) create an admin account in the database.

From my experience, clients struggle to understand any maintenance fees or fees for fixing the errors made by them.

I have what is probably a different approach from other developers. I only use standard blocks and I teach my clients to use the site. In my opinion, it should be safe for them to use, they paid me to build a thing, I built it for them.

It all depends on the arrangement you have with your developer. Let's say you want something super fancy that requires a bunch of hand coding... Well you won't be able to edit that. You need to let the developer edit that and expect to pay because that's a lot of work.

Since my clients expect to be able to edit, I need to make a site solid.

But that's a client/dev relationship setup situation, if that makes sense.

I think its a combination of factors. If things are ran properly, with proper backups, then a lot of things you can mess up are correctable.

It depends on the business model of the company, people can definitely be screwed over if there is no contract signed and you don't bill per project.

I give the login to my clients and I give people unlimited edits on their site if there is anything they want me to change.

I have clauses to protect myself though if they mess up the work I did because I have SLAs built into my contract, and if people don't know what they're doing, they can easily mess up the work and they can easily install plugins that would compromise the security of the site.

There are safeguards that can be put into place, and a lot of developers from what I've seen give people limited access to do what needs to be done without messing things up.

People who don't know what they are doing can easily make it problematic, but its also the developers responsibility to teach people how to use the site to try to avoid that, and some people may need access to the site for other reasons like if there is a separate marketing agency or something.

There are also developers though on the bad side, who yes do just want extra money and extra business, and you have to be careful with that.