Premium users on our legacy platform have received an email that we will be upgrading your builder to the newer Site Builder 3 platform.
If you receive this email and have any questions please post them below. We will be happy to assist you in any way that we can.
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I contacted Webs support via email to request the same, but I will voice my concerns here as well. I would like to be moved to a different "wave" of sites being switched over to the new builder, as Site Builder 3 is currently subpar to Site Builder 2. Keeping my website functional as long as possible is of the utmost importance to me.
In short, please move my site to a later transfer date. The URL is warriorcatsonline.com.
Thank you.-
Eric (Official Rep) September 15, 2016 18:49Sorry, we are not offering the option to move to a later transfer date.EditDeleteRemove
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I am amazed that that email was genuine - and even more shocked if only Premium users received it. It was addressed to "Dear there"! How is that an appropriate form of address for any user, let alone a Premium user who has been with webs for 7 years?
I have also contacted Webs Support by email, but I have not had answers to my concerns. My main concern is that Site Builder 3 does not have folders. This would be a catastrophe for my website.
Earlier this year, Moises stated "Since you are a legacy customer, meaning you were to convert the site to the new release, you will be able to export the option to use both File Managers structures. This option is only available to folks that converted from an SB2 site."
Is that still the case? If I were to convert to Site Builder 3 before the 30 days are up, would I still be able to export the option to use the SB3 File Manager structure?
This question is critical for the functionality of my website. If Webs cannot guarantee that I will be able to use Folders in File Manager, I will have to find a new web host.
I also request that my website be moved to a later transfer date. The communication about this issue has been shockingly poor, and the 24 days remaining of the 30 days notice is not sufficient to try to get answers from Webs about my concerns and try to find another host for my website if Webs fails to provide a service that will maintain its functionality.
My website is www.dollshousespastandpresent.com- view 1 more comment
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Well, that really gives me a lot of confidence in Webs as a web host, if you can't even format your emails accurately! That was one of the main things suggesting that the email was a phishing scam or contained malware, because it was not individually addressed.
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The email is set to be individually addressed and use your first name in our database, so I'm not sure how the issue happened. Apologies again for the confusion, honest mistake on our part.
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Now I know it's for real, I would urgently request a delay for my sites shiatsudutch.com, www.do-in.nl and shiatsu.webs.com for the same eloquent reasons that the members above have iterated. Having already made a new `copy ́ version of shiatsu.webs.com on my new sitebuilder 3 site, but not even started on the main site shiatsu.com. I am dependent on the style and folder setup on my SB2 sites and since they are for my international higher education school with hundreds of students, it ́s really not possible to upgrade my SB2 site at the moment. I have a school to run and all the published schedules and filing system is fine where it is on SB2. It.s ridiculous to expect that everything stops so we can all crack our heads adhering to what your company, with no notice except a spammy looking email, has inflicted upon us in an inconsiderate and draconian manner (there's no way back to SB2 etc.). Thirty days is ridiculous. You guys are not slaves to Vistaprint, are you?
Based on the loss of the file system alone is a reason for panic with just an e-mail and no real detailed communication about how the site will look or be controlled by me. It's a multipage complex site dedicated to your SB2 design therefore, you should appreciate that and the chaos it's going to cause you customers if you cannot give me the satisfaction of transferring the folder structure too and make it useable. I would appreciate a lot more insight. Forums don't solve corporate issues, you do. Come on Webs, get behind us Thank you.-
You will not lose access to the legacy file manager. Once the site is converted, the published version of the site will still remain the same until you wish to edit and publish it again in the new editor.
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So a month on now and this is what my premium site now looks like..... www.companionsforlife.com.au. Everything was fine for many years and now this.... Im upset to say the least.
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Hey folks,
I realize we might not all share identical concerns about being "upgraded" (downgraded, really) to the new site builder, however a petition has been devised to appeal this change. It can be accessed here:
https://www.change.org/p/webs-sitebui...
I have already shared it with my site members and asked them to sign, and I'd be incredibly grateful if anyone viewing this thread is in a position that it's feasible to do the same.
My members and staff have sent countless emails to Webs begging to either be transferred to another wave of sites being moved, or better yet, prevent the switch from happening altogether, however all we've gained were automated replies, claims that Site Builder 3 is "current technology", and poor analogies. THAT isn't customer service (but neither is the shoddy upgrade "announcement" that we received.) After sticking with their increasingly rising prices for years, pulling a stunt of this magnitude and forcibly changing sites to a broken Builder, then having the audacity to refuse to compromise or work with customers effectively, is absolutely ridiculous.
I assume a few customers can recall a similar situation about two years ago in which Webs attempted to fully implement Site Builder 3. It was cancelled due to widespread outcry, but this time, they've learned to transfer sites in "waves" to discourage larger sites from banding together and protesting.
Webs, if you guys have to resort to sneaky, devious tactics, that means there's something wrong with the product.
I apologize for getting a bit long-winded, but my site--and others, as described on this thread--cannot function without Site Builder 2. Site Builder 3 does not offer the same diverse features, as outlined in the petition above.
Thanks for your consideration,
brookcat / warriorcatsonline.com- view 1 more comment
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Signed.
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Thank you, I have signed the petition
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Now I'm trying to look at the themes offered in SB3, and lots come up saying Premium Account Required. So I sign in, hoping that signing in as a premium account holder will allow me to see the themes in the different colour options - but all I see is the Site Manager for SB2, and I cannot see the main Webs.com pages. Really well thought through, Webs.
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You can choose to convert your site now to look at the themes, and your site will remain as-is until you choose to publish the site again.
If you contact premium support through your account, they can also more directly help provide screenshots of specific theme and colors or anything else you need. -
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Not really helpful when the two 'builders' are not compatible. If you're lucky enough to still have a working site, each page will have to be deleted then published, then information readded then published again! then you find the site isnt working at all
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Dear Webs,
I'm Ember, a college student in the southern US. For the past seven years, I’ve been running a little roleplaying website called Warrior Cats of the Forest. The site works on the basis of group collaboration, from developing complex characters and planning wide reaching storylines, to participating in the forums writing the character interactions. Think of it as online improvisational drama. Through the roleplay and out of character interactions, members help each other improve their creative writing skills and make meaningful friendships. While my friend chose to leave the site after a year, I have continued to run the website for the past six years and have nurtured it into a flourishing community of talented writers and artists of varying ages and skill levels from around the world.
It’s a very rewarding process to watch the members improve as they practice fleshing out characters, describing scenes, and writing interactions. When one of our members joined three years ago, her first characters were very one dimensional. Now onto her fifth generation of characters, their depth helps drive the storylines in complex and interesting directions. Knowing that members of the community and I have helped her develop the thought processes to create these three-dimensional characters gives me such a sense of accomplishment. And the interactions go beyond the storyline and characters; you never know quite what you’ll be surprised by in the everyday lives of your members. I was totally impressed to learn that the member from Morocco was using the website to improve her English (her fifth language!), while I was struggling through my second year of Spanish.
While I started the website to participate in the roleplaying, I have stayed with the website because I love to build and organize the community. Each member is allowed up to 20 characters at a time, and even with membership limited to about 50 members at a time, we could have 1000 active characters in the storyline. To prevent total chaos on the site and in the storyline, I learned early on that organizing the site was well worth the time and effort. Through trial and error, I have built a multifaceted website with multiple pages for active roleplay, out of character collaboration, private messaging, and reference archives. Over time, I have gravitated more and more to spending my time and focus on these more organizational aspects, as I have found that ensuring that the members have a great experience on the site is more rewarding to me than the time spent roleplaying.
However, I worry that the forced migration to Site Builder 3 may threaten the community I’ve worked so hard to build.
As a college student balancing school with a part-time job, I have difficulty balancing these responsibilities with the time-consuming task of maintaining my website. On this front, the experiences I have had with Site Builder 3 have been disappointing; I find the structure of it unwieldy and difficult to navigate. While I’m sure I’ll be able to navigate it efficiently with practice, new pages take a long time to load and often come up with error messages. Running the website is a hobby I love, but I worry that the shift to Site Builder 3 will add so much time to my weekly updates I will have to abandon it and, as a result, Webs.
Warrior Cats roleplaying, and all genres of roleplaying, exist in a community with our own norms and etiquette. One of the ways I’ve been able to maintain a constant number of members for the past few years is through advertising. In our community, it is considered impolite to advertise on others’ sites unless you have a designated area for them to advertise on yours. On my website, I have a shoutbox on the homepage devoted entirely to roleplay advertisements, and another for chatting with a mix of members of my website and outside roleplayers. However, Site Builder 3 does not support shoutboxes. While I know that SB3’s HTML features allow site owners to embed third party chat boxes, I am nervous to use these as they won’t be integrated with our member profiles and may make moderating a challenge. Shoutboxes are a great social feature for any site, even for those who don’t depend on them for advertising, as they feel less formal than forums and blogs.
The transition may be jarring to my members as well. Warrior Cats of the Forest, or as we affectionately have nicknamed it “WCF”, has maintained a consistent appearance and navigational structure since it was first created. Site Builder 3 does not support our theme, which will force me to dramatically alter our appearance. While the themes claim to be fully customizable, they fall short of that description. Unlike in Site Builder 2 where websites were actually fully customizable with a little bit of CSS know-how, Site Builder 3 is severely constricted. Site owners are unable to adjust widths or add borders, among other specific design elements. While I understand that the CSS feature was abandoned in order to make Webs more friendly for users who don’t know how to code, features should be added that allow members to customize the templates exactly to their specifications, rather than the limited options of colors, backgrounds, and fonts currently available to us.
More important than the superficial appearance of the website is how members will navigate their way through it. In our forum-based roleplay, the most common way to get around is through the “Recent Forum Posts” section of our side bar. In fact, it’s not unheard of for members to spent hours writing on the site without ever leaving the forum application by just clicking from one recent forum post to another. However, Site Builder 3 does not have universal sidebars, with applications like the forums left behind. Whenever a member wants to see what threads have been posted on recently, they will have to go to the main forums page or view the recent posts section on the homepage.
For all of these reasons, I urge you to allow websites to remain on their preferred version of Site Builder. If this is impossible, please consider adding shoutboxes, additional customizable features to the themes, and universal side bars to Site Builder 3. Without these changes, I will be forced to move my website elsewhere and discontinue my premium membership.
Thank you,
Ember (owner of www.warriorcatsoftheforest.com) -
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I thought that we could have a sidebar on every page in SB3? Webs seems to think it's wasted space, so in SB3 it's not automatically added to every page - but can Webs please clarify if we can add it ourselves? Adding it manually to every page will be a huge demand on me and the administrators, but would at least be better than not having it. Or is this another feature of SB2 that legacy users can carry over to SB3?
Also, how about a bit of transparency - how many websites still in SB2 are you forcing to convert to SB3? There are reasons that all of us in SB2 have stayed in it, you know.- view 6 more comments
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Thanks Sylvia - looks like I'll have to sign up for SB3 before I can like it!
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Sidebars being the same on all pages and sidebars on app pages are not features that will carry over with conversion. Once you have placed the sidebar module on the page, the content in that module (like Recent Posts) will automatically update.
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We have been advised that our site is being migrated to Sitebuilder 3. We currently use the 'Naturalistic' template modified with code in the Advanced CSS code box. I wanted to check if the migration would affect anything on the live site (navigation, colours, any customisations etc). I assume not but thought it worthwhile checking. Can Webs staff advise please?
thanks
www.epi4dogs.com-
The live site will not change until you publish the side again, but SB3 themes do not support custom CSS so you would need to use the theme customization options from within SB3.
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But the custom CSS controls our branding, the look and feel of the website, rollovers etc. Why are you forcing a change that offers fewer features?? No web hosting company does that!
If that's the case we are going to have to redo the whole thing. Who do I send my invoice to? -
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One suggestion that folks with forums may wish to do, as a potential workaround to the lack of "Recent Forum Posts" sidebar module, may be a link to the "Recent Topics" view of the forum in the navbar. While not the same as having several posts shown directly in the sidebar, providing the link in the SB3 sidebar can give members who navigate that way at least an something closer to how they navigated in SB2.
- view 3 more comments
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How can Webs still call this an upgrade if you're basically telling users it's necessary to compensate for Webs' oversights?
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First off, there is a Recent Forum Posts module that you can place on the sidebar; it just doesn't have a header once it's been applied. It's under "Other" once you've installed Forums. Secondly, why hasn't this builder been fixed? You guys have had four years since you launched SB3. I shouldn't be able to do this (http://dsuhkabgv.webs.com/).
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But the custom CSS controls our branding, the look and feel of the website, rollovers etc. Why are you forcing a change that offers fewer features?? No web hosting company does that!
If that's the case we are going to have to redo the whole thing. Who do I send my invoice to?- view 2 more comments
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The themes all look pretty much the same to me. Different colours, different pictures that are meant to suggest the topic or area of the website (construction, eating, sewing, etc) - but a very bland sameness of layout, with not much choice, as Miss Lulu comments below.
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So I have a free Webs account to test changes on before going live on the Premium site. I upgraded the test site to Sitebuilder 3 to have a look at the new templates but I get an error when clicking 'Preview' which despite the advice therein has persisted for two days...
Oops, we have encountered a temporary glitch.
Sorry for the trouble, this should be resolved momentarily
← Please go back and try again
If this problem persists, try checking back in 10-15 minutes.
How do I preview the new themes? -
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Another question: most of the new themes seem pretty much the same e.g. with the logo forced into the top left. Regular full width banners don't seem able to be dragged to fit across the content area.
Can someone tell me which themes allow a full width banner like we have now http://www.epi4dogs.com
thanks-
It looks like you are already engaging with premium support via an email ticket to get help with these questions. Rather than reply in both places, please direct your questions to the ticket. Thanks! :)
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Too late your site isnt working either
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This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Link to paragraph/content box in Site Builder 3?.
Is it true that my site will be automatically migrated to Site Builder 3 within the next 20 days? If so, the entire layout of my site will be ruined. I had to revert back to Site Builder 2 because I couldn't figure out how to link to paragraphs/content boxes (this is what my content revolves around).
Unless there is a way of doing this in SB3, I pretty much have no idea how my website is going to work anymore.- view 1 more comment
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Please could you supply a list of all features in SB2 which are not in SB3?
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What a joke. So SB3 won't even allow premium, PAYING members to do something as simple as linking to a paragraph. How ridiculous. What kind of a web host forces customers to downgrade to sub-par software?
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Oh no, don't say there is another feature of SB2 that would be lost in SB3! What functionality will remain? Very little, by the sounds of it - this is just disastrous :-(
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To Customer Service,
As a businessman, as well as the founder and administrator of www.Christian-Miracles.com, I am voicing my objection to Webs plan to migrate my website to its current sitebuilder.
With over 80 pages that contain Google Adsense ads, including my own customized mobile site with a redirect code that I have placed on each webpage for anyone accessing with an IPhone or smartphone, I will hold Webs accountable for malfunction, loss of visitors and revenue if the so-called migration creates a mess.
I am not about to rework 80 web pages because of possible disarray created by Webs new website builder. This will surely create an adverse situation on the website including my customized mobile site if the redirect code is affected on www.Christian-Miracles.com by the migration.
This website was not built in one day. It took years to grow and achieve a professionalism which now includes 243,000 likes from Facebook fans!
My suggestion is for Webs to show some consideration and not be irresponsible in its decision making.
Thank you very much for resolving this matter as soon as possible!
Sincerely,
Loci B. Lenar -
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I do not want to be downgraded site builder 3, I tried it, bloody awful, huge lack of functionality, and even before I changed anything or updated anything my live site changed and looked like crap so I changed back to SB2 everything reverted back and I stayed with SB2 ever since.
So now after all the recent problems with site coming and going and not working properly, pictures not loading, site not working at all for days on end and evryone being ignored/fobbed off when they complained it seems on top of that there will be no choice but to go to the inferior SB3 at some point. Well no, I have decided to go elsewhere and will not be renewing my premium subscription.
Btw although my site is fixed there loads of people getting begging for and getting no help at all on the Zendesk here https://webs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/com... -
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I am a premium member of many years and I did not receive any email and was very happy with the site builder I had. I got back from vacation a week ago and wondered why my orders have all but stopped.
I have only just today logged into my site to find all my original graphics have gone, my themes, headers etc. My navbar is no longer on the left as it used to be. The whole site is a mess.
I would like to get my original theme and pages back. I don't know how to use this new site builder and much prefer the old one. I cannot figure out how to add pages to the navbar. This is not user friendly at all and in the meantime I am losing a lot of business.
Please tell me how to get my original site builder back and to restore my site to how it was a week ago. I have tried to fix it myself but am getting nowhere with the new site builder.
Very unhappy and after all these years of paying for my site it gets screwed up by Webs.com
www.heirloomsbysharon.com-
Please contact premium support using the "Support" button at the top-right of your dashboard for assistance with your SB3 site.
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It's not so much that Sharon needs help with the new Site Builder. From what I gather, this individual would like the old one back.
You know, like the rest of the customers Webs screwed over with this forced conversion. -
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