We found out yesterday that Mr Site (and associated brand names) has for many years been under the TSO Host banner, who have decided at the end of June to stop supporting the system Mr Site uses for its websites.

There are lots of “site-builders” around, including the likes of Wix and Mr Site. These are what many in the industry call “drag and drop” website builders, where you as the client pay a monthly fee and have all the access and flexibility to build your own website.

What does Mr Site closing mean?

In short, anyone who has built a site on Mr Site, will be left with NO website at the end of June 2020. Because the system it uses was specific to Mr Site, it’s not even possible to transfer the site to another host (as you could do with WordPress for example).

Customers who have been with Mr Site can still host their website with TSO Host, but will need to rebuild their website using a new system/platform. Of course another option is moving provider altogether, but we’d highly recommend you chat with a website developer about this, to make sure other hosting packages will suit your needs.

What can I do?!

Well first of all, do not panic! It’s a pity that TSO Hosts have only given just over a months notice for this (from what we can see), and for a lot of businesses, summer is a busy time (even during lockdown).

There are a few options that we think you should look at, while remembering, you can move your website from TSO Hosts so do bear that in mind.

  1. Look for alternative site-builders that you can use (could cost you around the same) – not something we highly recommend though, with Mr Site being a prime example of why
  2. Use WordPress as the platform to use – our favourite platform, currently used on over 35% of the worlds websites so it’s hugely supported and not going anywhere. You can download and install yourself if you can
  3. Ask a web developer to install WordPress for you and build your own site
  4. Ask a web developer to design you a new site from scratch

 

It will ALL depend on your budget, requirements and time. Personally, we feel that the best option for many people who have already approached us is number 3, where we make sure the hosting is compatible, and install WordPress on your domain/host for you. This means you keep the same website name, and you keep the flexibility of being to build the site yourself. As experts in the field, we’ll also send you some tips and advice on what plugins, themes and extras to use to get the most out of the platform. We charge £95 for this one off install.

We also have a build your own package which comes with hosting included (and other things, visit the page here), for £90 a year.

Finally, the design from scratch option – like we said above, it all depends on your time and budget. If you think that you’re going to struggle to redo your site, perhaps this is an option. Our standard websites (and includes bilingual functionality) start from £650 a year, and we do offer payment plans to spread the cost over 12 months.

Many options, but the important thing is not to panic, speak to your local web designer and get a plan of action in place.

P.S. try and get a back up of your site so you don’t lose the content; you’ll lose the Mr Site functionality but at least you’ve got a copy. If you don’t do this, you can always use the Way Back Machine to go back and take a look.

 

UPDATE – read our latest blog post with some ideas on what you can do next, and backing up your MrSite.

 

If you’d like to discuss your MrSite with us, even just for advice, we’d be happy to help. Get in touch using the form below.