So I’m in the process of onboarding a new client to my web hosting (WPEngine). Normally it’s a pretty seamless process – install the import plugin, do the migration, boom, it’s usually a ten minute process. Not here, though.
In one of the most bizarre situations I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying a lot) it seems that the prior company managing this client’s website hard-coded their own proprietary software into WordPress somehow. I’m not sure what benefits this had, but the company abruptly closed its doors and presumably shut down said software, a move that instantly destroyed the client’s website.
I was forwarded a zip file by the client that he was given by the company that was missing nearly everything. We would have had to to install a fresh copy of WordPress and then go through the directory structure of the zip file and recreate all of the web pages of the website manually as well as import any images in to the WordPress media library. On top of that, the themes folders are empty. Which means we would have had to recreate the entire design of the website anyway. I’ve never seen this before.
The client stayed calm (he’s a lawyer, so I imagine he excels at that) had the foresight to set up a temporary Wix site before being referred to me, and I was able to use Wayback Machine to do a clean rebuild on everything, thankfully.
My question is, is modifying WordPress to that extent a breach of WordPress TOS? Why they even set it up in the first place, I’ll never understand. Hilariously, the company itself appears to have been infected by malware so maybe it’s better they’re closing up shop.
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