Every agency here says the same things. These are the questions that actually separate them, and the traps that are specific to this market.
Choosing a web design company in Delhi comes down to six questions: who owns the code, can you see live work, who writes the copy, what is explicitly excluded, what happens to your rankings in a rebuild, and who does the work day to day. The traps specific to this market are undocumented custom admin panels, nulled plugins and domains registered in the agency's name.
The most important question and the one that decides your options in year two. The domain should be registered in your company name with your own registrar login. An agency-registered domain effectively holds your entire online presence.
Live URLs, not screenshots. Then check them yourself: load speed on your phone, whether the pages are indexed, whether the contact form works. A portfolio PDF proves nothing.
The most commonly hidden cost. If nobody has mentioned copy, you are writing it, and the project will wait for you. Ask whether it is included and who specifically does it.
Ask for the written exclusion list. It is more informative than the price, and its absence tells you the scope was never defined. Most disputes come from things nobody discussed.
A competent answer mentions redirect mapping without being prompted. If they say the new site will simply rank better, they have not done this before and you will lose traffic.
Meet them before signing. In this market the pattern of a senior person pitching and a junior delivering is common enough to ask about directly.
| Trap | What it looks like | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Domain in the agency's name | You cannot log in to your registrar | Run a WHOIS lookup now |
| Undocumented custom admin | Only they can change anything | Ask who else could maintain it |
| Nulled plugins and themes | Suspiciously cheap premium features | Ask for licence documentation |
| Reseller hosting you cannot access | No cPanel login of your own | Ask to log in before paying |
| Unlimited revisions | No defined end | Ask how many rounds are actually included |
| Very low quote | Template, no copy, no SEO, no ownership | Ask for the exclusion list |
| Ranking guarantees | Promised positions | Nobody controls Google's results |
Any one of these is worth a direct question. Two or more together is a pattern.
| Ask them | Good answer | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the site and files? | You do, unconditionally, in the contract | Ownership depends on staying with them |
| Can I open three sites you built? | Live URLs you can check | Screenshots and a PDF |
| What is explicitly not included? | A written list with change pricing | Everything is included |
| How will we know it worked? | A metric agreed before work starts | Activity reports |
The exclusions question decides whether the final invoice matches the quote.
Who owns the domain and the code, in writing. It decides every option you have afterwards, and an agency-registered domain is the single most common way businesses in this market end up stuck.
Ask every bidder to quote the same listed page count and the same inclusions, and to provide a written exclusion list. Once you have both, quotes that looked incomparable become comparable, and the cheapest usually stops looking cheapest.
Not automatically, and you should ask what it excludes. Very low quotes typically mean a template, no written copy, no SEO foundations, no ownership transfer and nobody accountable afterwards. For a simple presence that may be genuinely fine.
Yes. Nobody controls Google's results. Guarantees usually mean targeting terms with no search volume, or showing you a personalised result that looks different from everyone else's.
Open three of their live sites on your own phone. Check load speed, whether pages appear in a site: search on Google, and whether the contact form actually delivers. Five minutes of this tells you more than any meeting.
A bespoke, undocumented admin interface that only the agency that built it understands, with no update path. It is common here and it leaves you paying them indefinitely because nobody else can safely take it over.
It is fine if the account is in your name and you can log in and migrate without their cooperation. Agency reseller hosting you cannot access is where many businesses discover they cannot leave.
Send us what you are trying to fix and we will tell you what it takes, what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it. If we are not, we will say so.