Web designer stopped answering? Getting your site back

When it breaks 7 min read

How to find out who holds your domain and your hosting when the person who built your site stops replying, and what you can recover on your own.

Three emails and a text, and nothing back. It has been a month. You need a phone number changed on the website and you cannot get into anything, because you have never had a login for anything.

This happens often enough to have a standard route out of it, and the cause is usually mundane. People get ill, get overloaded, take a job, or quietly stop doing the work. What matters is how much of it you can get back on your own, and the first step is finding out what you already hold.

The four things you need to control

A website is not one account. It is four, and they can sit with four different companies. Losing sight of who holds each is what makes this feel unrecoverable when it usually is not.

The domain name. Rented from a registrar, and the most important of the four. Whoever controls this decides where your name points.

The hosting. The space the pages live in. Replaceable, and if you have to move you have to move, but it is not the end of anything.

The website itself. The pages, the text, the photographs, and if it runs on a system like WordPress, the login to that system.

Your Google Business Profile. Not part of your website at all, though people confuse them. It holds your reviews, and it is worth more than the other three combined.

The two things nobody can take away from you are your reviews and your own content, and those are the two that took years to accumulate.

Work out what you already hold

Before you chase anybody, spend twenty minutes finding out where you actually stand.

Search your email for renewal, invoice, receipt, password and welcome. Setup emails are often still sitting there from the year the site was built. Then read your card statements for anything repeating yearly or monthly, and note the company names. A charge from a registrar or a hosting company on your own card is strong evidence the account is yours.

Write down what you find on paper. Which company, which account, which email address it went to. That list is what every later conversation depends on.

Look up who holds the name

You can check the domain yourself without asking anyone. Search for a WHOIS lookup or an ICANN lookup, type your domain in, and read what comes back.

Owner details are often hidden for privacy, but the registrar's name is nearly always shown, and so is the expiry date. That tells you which company to call and how much time you have before a separate problem starts.

Then call that registrar. If what you found points to the account being yours, with your email and your card on it, explain that you have lost contact with the person who set it up, and ask what their account recovery process is and what proof they need. Have your invoices, your card statement and your business details ready. Expect it to be slow and procedural rather than difficult.

If the name turns out to be registered to the designer rather than to you, account recovery is not the right ask. The section below covers where that leaves you.

Send one clear message before assuming the worst

Before any of that turns adversarial, send one short message. Text and email, same words.

Keep it plain and unaccusing. Say that you need the domain and hosting transferred into your own name, ask for the registrar name, the hosting company and any logins, and give a date by which you would like to hear back. Say that if you do not hear by then you will go to the companies directly.

Do not apologize, and do not argue. The purpose is a written record with a date on it, which is what the registrar or host will want to see, and which is also the fastest route if the person is simply overwhelmed rather than gone. A message like that is sometimes answered the same day.

If nothing comes back

Go to the companies directly, in this order.

Start with the registrar, because the name is the thing that is hard to replace. Then the host, to get a copy of the site files. Then Google, which has its own process for claiming a Business Profile somebody else manages. That one is not independent of the designer. Google emails whoever manages the profile and gives them three days to reply. If they ignore it, you can usually go on to claim the profile and verify it yourself. If they refuse, you can still suggest edits to the listing and appeal the refusal to Google.

If none of it is in your name and the accounts were genuinely the designer's own, you may not get the hosting back, and the domain is harder than it looks. A registrar cannot take a name off the person it is registered to and hand it to you because the name is your business. There is no process for that. ICANN, which sets the rules registrars work to, says plainly that it cannot transfer or return a domain name to anyone, and a change of registrant needs the current registrant's approval.

What is left is slower, and worth knowing before you spend three weeks asking for the wrong thing. You can negotiate terms with whoever holds it and pay to have it transferred. You can wait for the expiry date you wrote down earlier and try to catch the name when it becomes available again. You can take legal advice about a claim. And if your business name is a trademark and the registration was made in bad faith, there is a formal complaint route called the UDRP, which carries a fee and takes months.

The expiry date is the only one of those with a date already attached. Keep watching it.

What you can rebuild without them

If the worst happens, take an honest look at what is actually lost. Usually it is less than it feels.

Your text is on the public internet and can be copied straight off your own pages before they go. Your photographs are probably on your phone. Your reviews are with Google, not with the site. Your phone number, your hours and your service list are in your head.

What you lose is the arrangement of it, which is the part that gets rebuilt anyway every few years. A site rebuilt on accounts in your own name is worth more than the old one, because next time nobody is standing between you and it.

A short checklist

• Search email for renewal, invoice, receipt, password and welcome
• Read a year of card statements for repeating charges and note the company names
• Run a WHOIS or ICANN lookup and write down the registrar and the expiry date
• Send one dated, unaccusing message asking for transfer, in writing
• If the account looks like yours, call the registrar and ask for their account recovery process by name
• Claim your Google Business Profile, separate from all of this, allowing three days for the current manager to reply
• Save a copy of your own text and photographs while the site is still up
• Insist every new account is created in your name, with your email

Questions people ask

How do I find out who my domain is registered with

Use a public WHOIS or ICANN lookup and type in your domain. Even when the owner is hidden, the registrar's name and the expiry date are shown.

My web designer will not reply, can I just take the domain back

It depends whose name is on it, which is what the WHOIS lookup tells you. If the registrar account is yours, with your name, your email and your card on it, ask the registrar for their account recovery process and have invoices and card records ready. That is the situation the process exists for. If the domain is registered to the designer, the registrar has no process for moving it to you, and more paperwork does not change that. What is left is negotiating with them, waiting for the name to expire, legal advice, or a UDRP complaint where your business name is a trademark.

Does my designer own my website

They own it only if that is what you agreed. Ownership depends on your arrangement, so if it was never written down, get every new account created in your own name so the question never comes up again.

Can I lose my Google reviews if I lose the website

No. Your Google Business Profile is a separate thing and holds the reviews. Claiming it back goes through Google rather than through the site or the host. Google does email the current manager first and give them three days to reply, so start it early.

Should I threaten legal action

Send a plain dated request first. What looks like refusal is often somebody who has stopped opening their email, and the companies who hold your accounts are usually the faster route in any case.

How do I stop this happening with the next person

Create the domain and hosting accounts yourself, with your own email and card, then give access rather than ownership. Anyone reasonable will agree to work that way.