Knowledge base / For owners
Who actually owns your website? Six things to check today.
Most owners discover the answer at the worst possible moment, which is the week they decide to change agencies. It takes about half an hour to find out now.
Key takeaways
- What are the six things to check? The domain registration, the hosting account, the WordPress administrator access, the theme and plugin licences, the content and images, and the Google properties.
- Which one catches people out most? The domain. If it is registered in an agency’s name rather than yours, you do not control your own web address or the email that runs on it.
- How do I check the domain? Look up a public WHOIS record for your domain and check the registrant organisation. Then log in to the registrar yourself. Being able to log in is the part that counts.
- What if the answer is not me? Ask for a transfer in writing, politely, before there is a dispute. Almost everyone complies when the relationship is still good, and almost nobody enjoys it once it is not.
Why is this worth half an hour?
Nothing here is urgent until it is extremely urgent. The pattern is always the same: a business decides to change supplier, or a supplier goes quiet, and only then does anyone ask who holds the domain. By that point the conversation is a negotiation instead of an administrative task.
Checking now costs you half an hour and one slightly awkward email. Checking later can cost you your web address, your email, and months of the rankings attached to them.
What are the six, and how do I check each one?
| What | How to check it today | What you want to find |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Look up a public WHOIS record, then log in to the registrar yourself. | Your business as registrant, and working credentials you hold. |
| Hosting | Log in to the hosting control panel. | An account in your name, with billing you can see. |
| Site admin | Open /wp-admin and check Users. | An administrator account that is yours, on your email. |
| Licences | List the premium theme and plugins and find who the licence is registered to. | Clarity, and a note of what it would cost to replace. |
| Content and images | Check your agreement, and check whether stock images are licensed to you. | Ownership of the words, and transferable image licences. |
| Google properties | Search Console, Analytics and Business Profile, under users or settings. | Your account as owner, not as a user someone else added. |
Write the answers down as you go. The list itself is useful: it is the handover document you would otherwise have to ask someone to produce under pressure.
The domain, in more detail
This is the one worth doing first, because everything else depends on it. Your website, your email and every link anyone has ever made to you run through the domain.
Two things can be wrong. The registrant can be someone other than your business, which means they control it. Or the registrant can be you while the login sits with someone else, which means you own it and cannot use it. Both get fixed the same way: get access, change the password, add your own recovery email and turn on two-factor authentication.
While you are in there, check the renewal date and turn on auto-renew. Expired domains are recoverable and the recovery is expensive, public and avoidable.
How do I ask without starting a fight?
Most of the time nothing bad is happening. Accounts end up in an agency's name because somebody set them up quickly in 2019 and nobody revisited it. The ask is routine if you make it routine.
Put it in writing, keep it brief, and give a reason that is not about trust. Something like: we are tidying up our records and want the domain, hosting and Google properties in the company's name, with you kept on as manager. That costs a cooperative supplier ten minutes.
If the response is reluctance, delay or a fee for handing over your own property, you have learned something important while you are still the client they want to keep. That is the whole reason to do this on a quiet Tuesday rather than during a handover.
Ownership questions
That depends on what you signed and what you are calling the site. The content and design should be yours once paid for, and a well-written agreement says so. The licences they used to build it may be theirs. The accounts should always have been in your name. If no agreement exists, this is worth settling in writing now rather than later.
It is a dependency rather than a disaster, and it becomes a problem on the day you want to leave. A reseller arrangement is common and legitimate. What matters is whether you can get a full export and a transfer on request, and how long they say it takes.
Many are bought per site or per developer, and some do not transfer. You are not necessarily being cheated if a licence stays with the agency. You do need to know which ones, what they cost to replace, and whether the site keeps receiving updates without them.
Whoever holds the primary owner role, which is often whoever created it. Check in the profile settings today. Transferring ownership is straightforward while everyone is friendly and slow when they are not. Our profile guide covers the rest of the setup.
Yes, for the domain, hosting, Google properties and an administrator account on the site. You do not need to use them. You need to have them, because every recovery route in a dispute runs through one of those four.
A full export of the site, the database, the content and the credentials, within days rather than weeks, with no fee for being given your own property. Ours is published as Fair Exit: everything within five business days, including anything we were involved with.
While you are auditing, check the site itself.
The free AI Visibility Score reads your live pages and reports eight points, so you know the condition of what you own.
Get your AI Visibility Score