Website ownership: making sure you own your domain, hosting and accounts

Many business owners discover who really owns their website at the worst moment: when a developer stops replying, an employee leaves or a domain expires. The fix is simple and boring. Make sure every account your website depends on is in your business's name, and that more than one trusted person can get in.

Owning vs. having access

There is a difference between owning an account and having access to it.

Owner: the account is registered to your business, billing is in your name (or clearly on your behalf), and you can add and remove other people.
User or collaborator: someone you've invited to work in your account. You can remove them at any time.

Agencies and freelancers should normally be users. When they are owners, you depend on their goodwill to make changes, renew or leave. See Why we ask for access for how this works in practice.

The accounts that matter

Account	Why it matters	Guide
Domain registrar	Whoever controls it controls your website address and email routing	Who owns the domain?
DNS provider	Points your domain at your site and email	DNS access
Hosting or platform	Where the site lives; losing it can mean losing the site	Who pays for hosting?
Website admin	Editing, users, settings	WordPress admin access
Google Analytics and Search Console	Years of data you can't recreate	Google Analytics access
Google Business Profile	Your listing in local search and Maps	Google Business Profile access
Email	Business email, and password resets for everything else	Domain vs. hosting vs. email
Licenses	Premium themes, plugins, apps, fonts	Plugin and theme license access
Brand and design files	Logos, fonts, design files, photography and their licenses	Organizing brand assets
Payments and store	Stripe, PayPal, Shopify; money and customer data	Stripe access

How to check who owns what

Check who owns what

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Start with the domain. Look it up using Where is my domain registered?. Then log in to the registrar and check the registrant contact is your business, with an email address you control.
Check hosting billing. Who gets the invoice? If it's bundled into an agency fee, ask which account the site lives in and whether it can be moved to your name.
Check the owner role in each Google tool. In Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager and Business Profile, find the user list and confirm someone at your business has the highest permission level.
Check the website admin. Make sure at least one administrator account belongs to someone at your business, with a business email address.
List licenses. Ask your developer which paid themes, plugins or apps the site uses and whose account holds each license.
Write it all down. Use the Asset inventory tracker.

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Good habits

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Use a business email address for account ownership, ideally a shared one such as web@ or admin@, not one person's personal inbox. If that person leaves, the account stays reachable.
Have at least two owners on critical accounts, so one person being unavailable never locks you out.
Keep credentials in a password manager with business sharing. See Using a password manager.
Turn on two-factor authentication, and make sure recovery codes are stored safely. See Setting up 2FA.
Turn on auto-renew for your domain and keep the payment card current. See Domain auto-renew.
Review access once a year and whenever someone leaves. See Offboarding a staff member.

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Fixing ownership problems

Troubleshooter

Which ownership problem do you have?

What's the problem?

The domain is in the agency's or a former employee's name

Ask them to transfer it into an account in your business's name. Most registrars support moving a domain between accounts at the same registrar, or you can transfer it to a registrar of your choice. See Transferring a domain and the Domain transfer checklist.

Nobody at the business can log in

Start with I can't log in to my site, or, for your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 admin, What to do if you lose access to your admin account. Platforms and Google tools have recovery processes, and they are much easier while the site is still running.

Licenses are in the developer's name

Ask whether the license can be transferred. If not, buy your own license and have it swapped in. A site running on someone else's license may stop getting updates when that person leaves.

The site runs on a platform only the agency controls

Ask what export options exist. If there are none, plan for that cost when you eventually move.

When you start a new project

Agree on ownership in writing before the work begins. Accounts should be created in your name, and the agency should be added as a user. At the end of the project, ask for a handover that covers every account. Transferring accounts and ownership to you shows what that looks like at Chykalophia.

Frequently asked questions

Is it rude to ask my agency to move accounts into my name?

No. A good agency will welcome it. It protects both of you.

What happens if my domain expires?

Your website and email can stop working, and after a grace period someone else may be able to register it. See Domain expiry recovery.