Every year we take over a site from a business that discovered, at the worst possible moment, that they did not own their own domain. Usually the discovery happens because the person who registered it stopped answering email, or wanted 4,000 dollars to release it, or simply let it expire.
This is preventable in about twenty minutes. Here is what to check and what good looks like.
The three things
The domain. Your web address. This is the one that matters most, because everything else can be rebuilt and this cannot be taken back easily. It should be registered in your business name, with your email as the contact, at a registrar you can log into.
The hosting. Where the site’s files live. Less critical, because a site can be moved, but you still want an account in your name rather than a slice of someone else’s reseller plan.
The content and the build. Your words, your photos, and the site itself. What you own depends on what your contract says, which is why the contract should say something.
How to check the domain in five minutes
Look up your domain in any public registration lookup. You will see the registrar, a creation date, and an expiry date. Privacy services hide the owner’s name, which is normal and fine.
Then try to log in. If you cannot log into the registrar with your own credentials, you do not control the domain, whatever anyone has told you. Being listed as the owner does not help if someone else holds the password.
Three states, in order of how much they should worry you:
- You have the registrar login. Good. Turn on two-factor authentication and set the renewal to automatic.
- Your agency has it, but the registration is in your business name. Workable. Ask to be added as an account contact.
- It is registered to an individual or an agency’s own name. Fix this now, while everyone is still on good terms.
Why “we handle that for you” is not an answer
Handling it is fine. Holding it is not. A good arrangement looks like this: the domain is in your name, at a registrar you can log into, and your agency has access to make changes. You could fire them on a Tuesday and still own your address on Wednesday.
If that sounds distrustful, consider it from the other side. We would rather not be responsible for your business address, and no serious firm wants that phone call either.
Content and the site itself
This is where contracts matter, and where most small projects have nothing written down at all.
Your content is yours. Words you wrote, photos of your building, your logo. Nobody has a claim to those.
Content they produced for you depends on the agreement. Copy, custom photography, and illustration should transfer to you on final payment. Ask for that sentence in writing before the project starts.
Stock photos are licensed, not owned. They come with terms attached, and those terms follow the site rather than the owner. That is normal, and it is one reason to use photos of your actual business where you can.
Fonts and paid extensions are licensed too. Usually to the site, sometimes to whoever bought them. Ask which, and ask what happens if you move the site.
The custom code should be yours. Templates the developer built for your site should come with you if you leave. A proprietary platform you cannot export is a different arrangement, and there is nothing wrong with it as long as you knew that going in.
What to ask for, in one sentence
Put this in an email before work starts: “Confirm that the domain will be registered in our business name, that we will have registrar access, and that copy, images and templates produced for this project transfer to us on final payment.”
A good answer is yes and a short note about the exceptions, usually stock photography and third-party extensions. A bad answer is a paragraph about how they handle all of that. Anyone who will not put ownership in writing before a project is not going to be more relaxed about it afterward.
If someone else already holds it
Ask plainly, in writing, for the transfer. Most of the time it is not malice, it is that someone set it up on their own account in 2016 and never thought about it. That gets resolved in a week.
If they refuse or go quiet, you have options and they are all slower than asking nicely:
- Registrars have dispute processes when a domain matches a business you can document.
- You can build on a new domain and redirect what you can. You lose some search history, and it stings, but businesses survive it.
- If the registration was made in your name without your knowledge, you may be able to prove that to the registrar.
None of these are as good as ten minutes and a polite email today.
The five minute version
- Look up your domain and note the registrar and expiry date.
- Log into that registrar yourself.
- Turn on two-factor authentication and automatic renewal.
- Check the account email is one your business controls, not an ex-employee’s.
- Email whoever built your site and ask for the ownership sentence above in writing.
