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Why I hate
Webmasters & Web Developers
If you read the article and
watch the videos here at pageBuzz.com you will see that there is
no love lost between myself and webmasters. I have a lot of bad
things to say and not many nice things at all.
So I figured I would explain
why I have a personal dislike for webmasters in general.
Of course, it is nothing personal and I
am always open to working with professional webmasters on an
individual basis. In fact I have created articles, pages and
videos offering to write programming, change existing
programs and give webmasters my personal support and whatever
they need to use the pageBuzz website hosting system. Because
the thousands of people we host all need help, designs and
support from the legit
professional webmaster community.
Let me first say, I am a
webmaster and I have been working with and hiring webmasters
since the 90's. So my insight is not just as a bystander but as
one of the people in the industry.
Oddly, that is the
reason I hate webmasters so much, because they have completely
ruined the industry. They have demeaned my job, my company and
what I do for a living because so many of them are ripoffs, con
men, scammers and just lousy at what they do.
It is actually my hate of how
webmasters conduct themselves and the vast level of
unprofessional ism that prompted me to build pageBuzz in he first
place, so people would not need them. Because my customers hate
them almost as much as I do.
And let me say, my customers
and I are not alone. The massive fraud in the webmaster industry
prompted the FTC to place building websites as one of the top 10
scams. That is bad for everyone in the industry.
Let me list my top
issues with typical webmasters.
They think
they are better than everyone else
They think
they are worth more than everyone else
They take
advantage of everyone
They are
uneducated and untrained
They don't
respect anyone else
They don't
know how to build websites
They don't
understand SEO
They have
limited skills but claim the title webmasters as a cover
They have give
all webmasters a bad name
90% of
webmasters are con men
They have
prompted the FTC to make building websites one of the top
10 scams
They have
ruined my industry
They think they are
better than everyone else
Let's start with their
attitude. It is bad. They have some superior sudo intelectual
attitude like nobody else is as good as they are.
Recently I place some ads to
hire a couple of webmasters full time and all I got was a bunch
as jerks. They told me they were great and if I hired anyone else
I was an idiot. That they have the latest technology and
computers at home and they would never work at my office because
I don't have the fastest computers and best software.
Well, excuse me! But in fact I
do have all of those things and it is a bit obnoxious to assume
that I don't. It is a bit rude to insinuate that I don't
understand what you need when I am run an IT business.
Why would I want to hire
anyone that is rude on day one? Where is that going long term?
I had hundreds of responses
all pretty much the same. I was an ass for expecting a
webmaster to travel to my office for a job, spend their money on
gas and take their time to drive to work.
Last time I checked, those
were just requirements of any job. Do webmasters have some
special pass that lets them work from home and companies can't
require them to show up at work?
I don't get it?
They think they are
worth more than everyone else
Even if I find a webmaster
that is not rude an obnoxious, I am faced with what they think
they are worth.
It seems like the less
experience they have the more they think they are worth. "I
took ad online course and I am worth $100.00 an hour".
Last time I checked I can hire
professionals with 5-10 years of education and 2 or more actual
college degrees for less than that. So why are webmasters worth
so much?
They just are not. Even with
10 years of experience a very seasoned webmaster is worth, on the
top end, $30 an hour. And that means they are extremely good at
what they do, understand programming, are masters of design and
build amazing products. There are not many webmasters making more
than $60,000 a year, in fact most work from home and make just a
few thousand dollars a year ad have to work a full time job to
survive.
That is not to say a
professional website design firm will charge you $30 an hour,
they will tripple that, but the webmaster does not get paid that
amount.
And most webmasters make even
less because they know less. They work on systems that are so
specialized that they never learn the industry in general but
just how to manage their tasks, updates and maintain the portion
of the website that they are in charge of.
Many webmaster positions at
large companies are a lot like assembly line jobs, do one task
over and over to keep the company moving.
If you work for a large
ecommerce provider, you job might be to update inventory, enter
data or clean up the look of pages. So if they step outside that
realm, they don't know how complex developing an entire website
can be or what considerations might be required.
They take advantage of
everyone
I don't know why, but all this
translates into them convincing themselves and others they are
worth so much and they then take advantage of people. They claim
to be worth $200 an hour and they get $5000 and $10,000 to build
a 10 page website. Even though they never once got paid $10,000
to build a website.
I know real website design
firms get that kind of money, but for good reason. They have a
load of people to pay. Graphic designers, coders, html
specialists, network engineers and cover their basic overhead.
They have to spend time doing research, create a plan and then
work with several people to execute it. The more people involved,
the more it costs.
That is not to say you get a
better product, but you certainly pay more for it.
But independent webmasters
want the same price that these commercial companies get. They
think that if President Obama can pay $600 million for a website
then they are worth $600 million if they build a website.
The fact that they have
obnoxious fees shows me they don't understand the industry.
They don't understand
companies spend sometimes several months creating programs, that
the design is really just icing on the cake. Without the cake,
there is no need for the webmasters.
When commercial sites
are developed, the cost is not just for the design, it is for
everything, the programming, the hardware, networking, the
software licenses, graphic designers and everyone else involved.
The webmaster comes in last and adds the icing on the cake to
make it look pretty.
They are not getting paid $10,000
for 10 pages, they are getting paid $30 an hour to work with the
content created by other professionals.
So telling unsuspecting
business owners that they need to pay $10,000 for a website that
might take 20 hours is just insane and a complete scam. They are
no better than any other scammer targeting a demographic and
lying to them to get as much money as possible.
They are uneducated
and untrained
If I have seen this once I
have seen it a hundred times. Webmasters will call me up as they
are charging $10,000 for the website and they ask, why is the
form not working? They built a form on whatever page editor and
uploaded it to the website and when they click submit, nothing
happens.
How can a webmaster build a
form with static html and not know that the form is a static page?
How can they be worth $10,000 when they don't even realize you
need a program on the back end to process the form data and do
something with it?
They don't even understand the
basics, form fields, post action and average webmaster basics.
They don't realize fields need to be defined, posted to a program
and processed. But they think they are worth $10,000 to build a
10 page website?
They think ebay and amazon are
just pages that someone built on dreamweaver or front page and
don't even realize there are millions of lines of code on the
back end and thousands of servers networked together to make the
programs run.
If they are that inept, what
else don't they know?
My experience has been
overwhelmingly poor. Webmasters that don't understand basics,
basic FTP commands, basic file paths, basic website architecture.
Sure they know how to click on
cPanel icons, but do they understand what the functions are doing?
Most webmasters have a set of
programs the use, they can't use others because they don't
understand how things work only how to click on their tools.
That means they don't
understand how servers work, how websites work, how the Internet
works. They only know how to use a WYSIWYG editor to build pages
and most could never publish a website without clicking the
publish button and have the software do if for them.
They don't respect
anyone else
All of this is particularly
annoying when you are someone like me that has 15 plus years
experience developing websites and programming to support
millions of people. Complex systems that make healthcare.gov look
like a 3rd grade sandbox.
So when webmasters tell me I
don't know what I am doing, I am beyond mad. When they look at me
like I am an idiot, yes, it irritates me.
But when they adopt that
attitude with my customers it is even worse, because they don't
know better. They assume the webmaster is so far above them in
technology that they just feel stupid even though it is the
webmaster that is stupid.
I have spent the
last 15 years being put down by webmasters that don't know
what I am doing, I can't design, I am stupid.
But I am still in
business, I have made millions of dollars while those same
webmasters still look for unsuspecting victims each day
trying to make enough money to keep the power and phone
turned on.
You might say that has
contributed to my bad attitude toward webmasters.
They don't understand
SEO
Another one of their scams is
SEO. Now SEO is important, but they don't and can't promise you #1
in google, or even any better placement based on anything than
building content.
The charge astronomical fees
to people that believe if they pay it, they will get this huge
flood of traffic and make all the money back.
The charge sometime thousands
of dollars and deliver nothing and when people are angry, the
webmaster disappears and can't be found.
If I had a dollar for every
person that called us because their webmaster stopped answering
their calls, I could probably retire.
They use SEO as a con, as a
scam a way to convince people to spend money on something that
the webmaster can't deliver.
They have limited
skills but claim the title webmasters as a cover
They really don't know much at
all, but by hanging a sign on the door that says "I am a
webmaster" they try to justify all these fees.
Now because of all these
problems the term WEBMASTER has become a dirty word. Real
webmasters don't want to use that term, they don't want to be
associated with their own industry.
When someone says they are a
webmaster people automatically assume they are going to try to
sell them a website for more than it is worth. People do
everything they can to avoid webmasters.
Yes, the con men have made my
industry, my profession a sinful act, a shameful title and an
embarrassment.
Now, I am considered a con man,
a shyster, a criminal or at least being associated with criminals.
It is all very disheartening.
They have prompted the
FTC to name building websites one of the top 10 scams
You don't have to take my word
for it, it got so bad the FTC labeled website design as one of
the top 10 scams. Telling people to watch out for scammers, be
careful and consider webmasters con men.
Now how good is that for any
of us?
That have destroyed my
industry
They have turned what I love
to do, what I am good at, what I have chosen as a career into
dirt, shame and deceit. They have beat the market into the ground,
created angry customers and give websites a bad connotation.
Yes,
all of this is why I hate webmasters. And while I could go on for days how they have
screwed me, my customers and others, the fact is, there are a
few good webmasters out there. Unfortunately in 15 years I
have not found any of them.
And those are just
some of the reasons.
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