Unless agreed upon otherwise, in writing, imFORZA does not provide FTP or SFTP access to hosted WordPress websites for customers.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) provides direct access to website root files, theme files, plugin files, CSS files, functions, and more.
imFORZA does not provide FTP or SFTP access to WordPress websites that we are currently hosting / supporting for customers. This is clearly stated in our Terms and Conditions (see Proprietary Rights section) that all imFORZA website customers agree to upon purchase and engagement of our team to build / host a website.
The reasons for this policy are:
- Doing so circumvents the SVN (versioning) system we setup for each custom website, which is a WordPress development best practice
- Doing so would allow someone to modify core WordPress files, theme files or plugin files - none of which should ever be modified directly without proper knowledge, tracking and code auditing in place
- Doing so could allow someone to intentionally or unintentionally delete, break or take down their own website or leave it open to security risks
If your website with us is a template website, then anything you might need to do (usually content related) can and should be done via the WordPress admin. If you, or someone you are working with, tells you that they need to edit the site's theme or plugin files, then they do not know what they're doing and should not be making these types of requests.
If your website with us is a custom website, then any changes to the site's theme files need to be done properly, through our SVN process which uses GitHub. If you, or someone you are working with, needs to edit theme files, then we can set them up with a user account to access and submit edits to the site's GitHub repository. Any WordPress developer that understands best practices should be familiar with this process and how to use GitHub. If they don't, then they definitely should not be touching any code on your site.
We usually get requests for FTP / SFTP from customers that have been told to request from their contracted SEO vendor (by the way, we are an Internet marketing agency...why aren't we doing your SEO?! We know your site better than anyone!). In these cases, tracking codes, verification files, or plugin requests are made.
9.9 times out of 10, these are things that absolutely do not require FTP / SFTP access. Directly accessing and editing the site via FTP / SFTP is a lazy, inexperienced way of accomplishing what are usually simple tasks that our team can handle in minutes...the right way.
If you need to discuss this access with our team in further detail, then please let us know. It's better that you and whomever you're working with is properly educated on how this access works and when (which is usually never) it's needed.