17 Red Flags to Watch for When Hiring a Web Designer

The short answer

• No written scope, vague ownership, and full upfront payment are the most expensive flags.
• Honest providers never guarantee rankings — no one controls Google's results.
• Portfolios should link to live websites you can visit and verify.
• Payments should follow visible milestones, never land 100% before work starts.
• Require ownership, export terms, and a post-launch fix window in writing.

No written scope or contract

Working without a written contract or itemised scope is the single most predictive red flag. Flag 1 is no contract at all; flag 2 is a lump-sum quote with no line items. Both leave price, deliverables, and ownership open to interpretation — and in a dispute, interpretation always favours the person who wrote the invoice.

1. No written contract or scope document
2. A lump-sum price with no line items
3. The domain registered in the designer's name
4. "You don't need admin access" to your own accounts
5. Portfolio screenshots with no live URLs
6. Cannot explain their role in portfolio projects
7. Guaranteed first-page or number-one rankings
8. Traffic or revenue promises with no measurement plan
9. "Unlimited revisions" with no definition of a revision
10. No written process or price for change requests
11. 100% payment required before anything is shown
12. Payments not tied to visible milestones
13. A proprietary platform with no export path
14. Licences held in the designer's account with no transfer terms
15. No redirect plan for your existing URLs
16. No stated backup or recovery process
17. No analytics, no fix window, no support terms

That is the full list at a glance. The rest of this guide takes the flags in order, roughly two per theme, with why each one matters and the safer requirement to ask for instead.

Vague ownership and account access

Flag 3 is a domain registered in the designer's name; flag 4 is being told you do not need admin access to your own hosting, analytics, or content system. Whoever controls those accounts controls the website. Ownership of every asset and account should be stated in writing before any money moves.

The domain is the deepest risk. If it is registered under the designer's account, your email, your Google Business Profile, and your website all depend on their goodwill — and on their business staying open. The safer requirement: the domain sits in a registrar account you own, and you hold admin access to hosting, analytics, and the site itself, with logins delivered at handover. The full asset-by-asset breakdown is in website ownership explained.

Portfolio screenshots without live URLs

Flag 5 is a portfolio made of screenshots or mockups with no clickable links; flag 6 is a designer who cannot say what they actually did on each project. Screenshots prove nothing about speed, mobile behaviour, or whether the site exists. Ask for live URLs and the provider's specific role on each one.

Visit two or three portfolio sites on your phone. Do they load quickly, work on a small screen, and still look maintained? Then ask, project by project: did you design this, build it, or both — and who else was involved? Vague answers usually mean the work was templated, outsourced, or borrowed. When you weigh shortlisted providers side by side, our Cochrane web design companies compared guide shows what a checkable local track record looks like.

Guaranteed rankings or unsupported results claims

Flag 7 is any guarantee of first-page or number-one Google rankings; flag 8 is a traffic or revenue promise with no measurement plan behind it. No provider controls Google's results, so no honest provider guarantees them. Real SEO proposals describe the work, the timeline, and how results will be measured — not a promised position.

Rankings depend on competition, content, links, and algorithm changes that nobody outside Google controls. A guarantee either ignores that reality or relies on shortcuts that get websites penalised. The safer requirement is specifics: which pages will be optimised, what will be measured, and how you will see progress month to month.

Unclear pricing, revisions or change orders

Flag 9 is "unlimited revisions" with no definition of what a revision is; flag 10 is having no written process or price for change requests. Both turn scope into a negotiation that happens mid-project, when you have the least leverage. Ask for named revision rounds and a written price for out-of-scope changes.

"Unlimited" sounds generous, but it usually means one of two things: the price already carries padding, or the provider plans to define "revision" narrowly the first time you use it. A healthy standard is two to three structured rounds per stage, a plain definition of revision versus new request, and change requests priced in writing before the work starts.

Full payment before visible milestones

Flag 11 is a demand for 100% payment before you have seen anything; flag 12 is a payment schedule with no connection to visible milestones. A deposit is normal and fair. Paying in full up front removes every incentive to finish, and leaves you with no leverage if the project stalls.

A healthy structure ties money to things you can see: a deposit to book the project, a payment at design approval, and the balance at launch. The exact split matters less than the principle — every payment should follow something you have reviewed. That is the norm serious local studios work to, and it protects both sides equally.

Proprietary lock-in without export terms

Flag 13 is a website built on a proprietary platform you cannot export; flag 14 is themes, plugins, or font licences held in the designer's account with no transfer terms. Both mean leaving the provider means rebuilding the website. Before signing, ask one question: if we part ways, what exactly do I take with me?

Some platforms are genuinely fine — the flag is not the tool, it is the silence about leaving it. The safer requirement is written export terms: what files, content, and licences transfer to you, in what format, and at what cost. If the honest answer is "nothing transfers," you are renting a website, not buying one, and the price should reflect that.

No migration, backup or recovery plan

Flag 15 is a redesign proposal with no redirect plan for your existing URLs; flag 16 is no stated backup or recovery process. Skipping redirects can throw away rankings your old site earned, and a site without backups is one bad update away from disappearing. Both belong in the proposal, not the apology.

If you already have a website, ask how every old URL will be redirected to its new equivalent — Google's own site-move guidance treats this as basic hygiene, not an optional extra. Then ask where backups live, how often they run, and how quickly the site can be restored. A provider with real answers has recovered a site before. A provider without them will learn on yours.

No measurement or post-launch support

Flag 17 is a project that simply ends at launch: no analytics, no fix window, and no support terms. Without measurement you cannot tell whether the website works, and without a fix window every small post-launch issue becomes a new invoice. Ask what is covered after launch, for how long, in writing.

Websites are software, and small issues surface in the first weeks — a form quirk on one phone, a browser update, a typo nobody caught. A reasonable baseline to request from any provider: analytics installed with conversion tracking on the contact action, and a defined period after launch where fixes cost nothing. Ongoing care beyond that should be optional, priced monthly, and easy to decline.

What to require instead

Flip every red flag into a written requirement: itemised scope and contract, ownership of your domain and accounts, live portfolio URLs, honest measurement instead of ranking guarantees, defined revisions and change pricing, milestone payments, export terms, redirects and backups, and a post-launch fix window. A good provider agrees to all of it without flinching.

• ☐ A written, itemised contract naming pages, price, and exclusions
• ☐ Domain, website, content, and all admin accounts owned by you, in writing
• ☐ Live portfolio URLs with the provider's role stated for each
• ☐ A measurement plan — analytics and conversion tracking — instead of ranking promises
• ☐ Named revision rounds and written pricing for change requests
• ☐ Payments tied to milestones you review, never 100% up front
• ☐ Export terms: what transfers to you if you leave, and in what format
• ☐ A redirect map for existing URLs, plus stated backup and recovery
• ☐ A defined post-launch fix window at no cost

This is the standard we hold ourselves to. Local Cochrane Web Design works on three written guarantees — including an itemised scope where the price cannot change without your written approval — and every enquiry goes to Parker by email, with a written, itemised proposal within one business day. That also makes a local second opinion on any quote easy to get. If you want the standard built in from the start, see custom web design with full ownership in writing.

Frequently asked questions

What are red flags when hiring a web designer?

The strongest warning signs are no written contract or itemised scope, vague answers about who owns the domain and accounts, portfolios without live links, guaranteed rankings, undefined revisions, full payment before any work is shown, platform lock-in without export terms, and no backup, migration, or post-launch support plan.

Should I pay a web designer 100% upfront?

No. A deposit is normal and fair, but full payment before any visible work removes the provider's incentive to finish and your leverage if the project stalls. A healthy structure ties payments to milestones you can review — a deposit at signing, a payment at design approval, and the balance at launch.

What if the designer owns my domain?

Ask for a transfer to a registrar account in your name as soon as possible, in writing. The domain is your business address online; whoever holds the registration controls your website and email. A designer can manage the domain for you, but the registration itself should always sit in your name.

Is no written contract a red flag?

Yes — it is the most predictive one. A contract does not need to be long, but it must name the pages being built, the price, the payment schedule, revision terms, ownership, and post-launch support. A provider who resists writing those down is showing you how disputes will be handled later.

How do I verify portfolio work?

Ask for live URLs and visit each site on your phone. Check speed, mobile layout, and whether the site still looks maintained. Then ask the provider what their role was — design, build, or both — and who else worked on it. Where possible, confirm with the client that the provider built the site.

What happens if my designer disappears?

If you own the domain, hosting, and content, you hire someone new and carry on. If the designer owned those things, you may lose the website, the email tied to the domain, or both. That is why ownership, admin access, and export terms belong in writing before the project starts.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Search Essentials
• Google Search Central — site moves with URL changes
• Google Search Central — creating helpful, reliable, people-first content