Websites
Who Actually Owns Your Website
Domain, DNS, hosting, code, content, and analytics are six separate things, and it is common for a business to own only two of them without knowing it.
The question sounds simple and almost never has a simple answer. "Our website" is at least six separate assets, each held in a different account, and a business can easily own two of them.
This surfaces at the worst possible moment: the developer stops answering email, or the relationship ends badly, or the person who set it all up retires and nobody has the logins.
The six things
| Asset | What it is | Who often holds it |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | The registration of yourbusiness.com | Whoever bought it, often a contractor |
| DNS | What points the domain at the server | Registrar, host, or a third service |
| Hosting | The server the files live on | Agency reseller account |
| The code | Theme, templates, custom work | Agency, sometimes under licence |
| Content | Text, photos, the database | You, usually — but inside their system |
| Analytics and ads | GA4, Search Console, Google Ads | Agency, very often |
The domain is the one that matters most
Everything else can be rebuilt. The domain cannot be taken back by rebuilding. If it is registered to somebody else’s account, they can point your business name anywhere they like, and your leverage is a lawyer.
Check it in two minutes. Go to a WHOIS lookup and search your domain. The registrant organisation should be your business name. If privacy protection hides it, log into the registrar directly — and if you cannot log into the registrar, that is your answer.
If you cannot log into your domain registrar right now, you do not control your domain.
Analytics and ads accounts, the second trap
This one is subtler and more common. The agency creates a Google Ads account and a GA4 property under their own management. When you leave, the data does not come with you — not the conversion history, not the negative keyword list, not the years of analytics you would need for any comparison.
The correct arrangement: the business owns the Google Ads account, the GA4 property, the Search Console property, and the Google Business Profile. The agency is granted admin access. It works identically day to day, and it means leaving is a permissions change instead of a loss.
This is one reason we read the analytics configuration off an existing site during an audit rather than starting fresh. Continuity of measurement is worth more than a clean slate, and a new property means every year-over-year comparison in the account resets to zero.
Hosting, and the reseller markup
Many agencies resell hosting — they hold one account and put clients on it. It is convenient and it is fine, as long as you can leave. Ask two questions: can I get a full backup of files and database on request, and can the site be moved to a host of my choosing?
If the answer is vague, plan for it. If hosting is bundled into a monthly fee with no line item, ask what portion it is. Reselling $8 hosting inside a $250 monthly plan is a business model, not a crime, but you should know it is happening.
The code, and the word "proprietary"
Some agencies build on a proprietary platform. The site works, and it exists only on their system — there is no export, and leaving means rebuilding from zero. This is not disclosed loudly.
Ask directly: if we part ways, what do we walk away with? A WordPress site with a standard theme is portable. A site built in a closed builder is a rental, and the honest ones say so.
The five-minute inventory
- WHOIS your domain. Is your business the registrant?
- Log into your registrar. Can you?
- Log into your host. Can you download a backup?
- Open Google Ads and GA4. Are you an owner, or just a viewer?
- Check Google Business Profile ownership — a former marketing vendor holding this is very common.
What it should look like
Domain in your account, paid on your card. Hosting in your name or portable on request. Code you can export. Analytics, Search Console, ads, and Business Profile owned by you with access granted to whoever does the work. Documentation of all of it somewhere that is not one person’s head.
That is the arrangement on every website we build, and it is written into the handover rather than assumed. It is also the arrangement that makes us easy to leave, which is the point.