Ownership
Who actually owns your website.
Most people find out the answer at the worst possible moment: when they want to change who looks after their site, and discover the address is in somebody else’s account. It is a common situation, it is not anybody being wicked, and it is almost entirely avoidable by asking four questions early. Here is what to ask, and how to check what you hold today.
Three things, not one
A website is three separate things, and each can sit in a different name.
The domain name
The address people type. It is rented, not bought, and renewed every year or few. Whoever is recorded as the registrant controls it, and that name is set when the domain is first registered. If your designer registered it, the domain is in their account, not yours.
The hosting
The computer your pages sit on. A separate account with a separate company, and it can also be in somebody else’s name. Hosting is the easiest of the three to replace, because the pages can be moved. Losing it is an inconvenience. Losing the domain is not.
The files
The pages, code and images the site is made of. Having a copy and owning them are two different things: whoever writes the code owns it first, and it becomes yours only if your agreement says so. So you want both — an agreement that says the finished site becomes yours once you have paid for it, and an actual copy of the files in your own hands. Whoever built the site has the files. You may never have been given a copy, and nothing makes one appear unless it was agreed.
You can own all three, none of them, or the usual case: the files and the hosting are somebody else’s problem and the domain is somebody else’s property.
Four checks
How to find out what you hold, this afternoon.
Look up who the domain is registered to
Search for “WHOIS” and your domain name. Many registrations hide the owner behind a privacy service, so a hidden result is normal and not proof of anything. What matters more is the next check.
See whether you can log in
Not whether someone can log in for you. Whether you hold an account, in your own email address, at the company the domain is registered with. If the only way in is to ask the person who built the site, they hold it, whatever the paperwork says.
Find out which email address the renewal notice goes to
A domain lapses quietly. The warning arrives by email, to whichever address is on the account. If that address is not one you read, you will find out the site is gone when a customer tells you.
Ask for a copy of the files, today, while nobody is annoyed
A calm request during a good working relationship is answered in an afternoon. The same request during a disagreement is answered slowly or not at all. Ask now, put the copy somewhere you will find it again, and you never need the request to work under pressure.
Before anyone starts
Five questions, asked once.
- Will the domain be registered in my name and my email address, in an account I can log into myself?
- Will the hosting account be in my name too, and will I have the login?
- Do I get a complete copy of the site files when it goes live, and again if we ever stop working together?
- If I want to move to somebody else in two years, what exactly do you hand over, and how long does it take?
- Is any of that written into the agreement, or is it goodwill?
Anyone who intends to work with you properly will answer all five without hesitating. The answers are worth more in the agreement than in a conversation.
Worth noticing
Five situations that are worth a question.
- The domain was registered for you without anyone asking whose name it should be in.
- You have never seen a login for anything, only a person who logs in on your behalf.
- The yearly renewal is invoiced by the designer rather than by a domain company you have an account with.
- A request for a copy of the files is answered with a reason rather than a file.
- The agreement says what will be built and says nothing about what happens if you leave.
None of these means somebody is behaving badly. Most of the time it is simply how the arrangement grew. They are worth a question all the same, because each one is cheap to fix now and expensive to fix later.
Questions
Questions people ask
I paid for the website. Doesn’t that make it mine?
Paying for the work and holding the accounts are two different things, and the second one is what decides whether you can move. A domain belongs to whoever is recorded as its registrant with the domain company. Hosting belongs to whoever holds that account. The files are a different matter again: whoever wrote the code owns it first, and it becomes yours only if your agreement says so, which is why having a copy is not the same as owning it. An invoice does not move any of the three on its own, which is why it is worth settling in writing before the work starts rather than arguing about it afterwards.
My designer holds the domain and we have fallen out. What now?
Ask them, in writing and without heat, to transfer it to an account in your name. Most transfers need an authorisation code from the company the domain currently sits with, and that company’s own help pages will say how their process runs. If the request goes unanswered, contact the domain company directly, explain the position and ask what evidence of ownership they accept. Keep every invoice and email showing you paid for the domain. This is a real dispute with a real cost, and it is the reason the question is worth asking on day one instead.
Is it safer to register the domain myself before I hire anyone?
Yes, and it costs nothing extra. Register it in your own name, with your own email, at any domain company, and give whoever builds the site the access they need for the job. They can do the technical part without owning the address. If you would rather someone else set it up, ask for the account to be created in your name and the password handed to you.
What happens to the domain if I stop paying for a care plan?
Nothing, if the domain is in your own account, because a care plan and a domain are separate things. That separation is the whole point. Where they are bundled together in one person’s account, stopping the plan can put the address at risk, which is a good reason not to bundle them.
How does Silicon Insights handle this?
The hosting account and the Google Business Profile are set up in your name. The domain stays in your own registrar account, renewed by you, and if it is currently held by someone else the first job is usually getting it moved across. You get a complete copy of the site files when it goes live and again at handover, and none of that is a favour: it is written into the agreement. We have no interest in holding a business hostage to an address.
None of the above is legal advice. It is what we have seen and how we work. If money or a dispute is involved, that is a conversation for a lawyer, not a web studio.
If you are not sure what you hold
Send us the address and we will tell you what we can see.
Send your website address and we will look up what is public about the domain and the hosting and tell you plainly what we find, whether or not you ever work with us. We work in English, Bengali and Hindi.