Who owns your website, your domain and your email

What it costs 6 min read

How to find out whose name is really on your domain, your hosting and your email, and what to ask for so all three end up under your control.

Somebody set your website up years ago. It works, so you have never thought about it. Then you need to move it, or change something, or the person who built it stops answering, and a plain question turns out to be surprisingly hard to answer: is any of this actually yours?

It is worth ten minutes on a calm day, because the answer is much easier to change now than on the day you need it.

Three separate things, and three separate owners

What you think of as your website is at least three things, held in different places, on different bills.

The domain. The name itself, rented by the year from a registrar. Whoever's name is on that account controls where the name points, and the name is the part everything else hangs off.

The hosting and the files. The space the pages sit in, and the pages themselves. A different company, a different login, usually a different bill.

The email. Often a fourth company again, even when the addresses end in the same name as the site.

Any one can be in your name while the others are not. The usual arrangement, and it is nobody's plot, is that whoever built the site set all three up on their own account because it was quicker that afternoon.

Why it only ever comes up on a bad day

Nobody checks this while things are going well. It surfaces when you want to hire somebody new, when a bill goes unpaid, when a developer moves on, or when you sell the business and a lawyer asks a question you cannot answer.

At that point the difference between owning and using becomes concrete. If the domain is in your name, everything else is recoverable, however awkward. If it is not, you are asking for a favor.

Whose name is on the domain, and how to check

Domain registrations are a matter of public record, with limits. Use a public domain lookup, or the search on any registrar's site, and put your address in.

You will get the registrar the name is held with, the expiry date, and sometimes a registrant name and email. If it shows a privacy service instead of a person, that is normal and tells you nothing about control. What you want first is which company holds the name, because that is where the account lives.

Then answer the harder question. Do you have a login to that account, with a password reset going to an email address you can read? If the reset email goes to somebody else's inbox, the account is not yours in any sense that will matter later.

Who controls the hosting

The registrar tells you where the name is. It does not tell you where the site lives. For that, look for the bill.

Search your email for renewal, then for invoice, then read a year of card statements for anything small that repeats. If nothing comes back, your website is probably being paid for by somebody else and billed to you inside another fee, or not billed to you at all.

Neither is a disaster. Both are worth knowing, because the hosting account holds the actual files, and access to it is what lets your site be handed to somebody new in an afternoon rather than rebuilt.

Where your email actually lives

This one catches people out more than the website does.

If your address ends in your own domain name, then your email depends on settings inside the domain account, not the website. It is entirely possible to own your website files, lose control of the domain, and have your email stop the same week. The reverse also happens: people move hosting, nobody thinks about the mail settings, and the address goes quiet for a day.

Find out which company delivers your mail and whether that account is in your name. If your business email is still a free address at a general provider, none of this applies, which is a simpler life.

What "we will take care of all that" can quietly mean

The phrase is usually meant kindly. It can mean two very different things.

It can mean the accounts are in your name and somebody else manages them for you. That is a service, and you can end it.

Or it can mean the accounts belong to them and you are a user. That is access, and it ends when the relationship does. You may find you cannot take the site anywhere, because it only exists inside a platform they hold the keys to, or that the pages themselves were never yours to move.

Neither arrangement is dishonest as long as it was said out loud. It usually was not, because at the start nobody expects to need it.

What owning a website does and does not cover

Owning your site means you hold the domain, the files and the database, and you can move the whole lot to another provider without asking permission.

It does not usually mean you own every piece inside it. Fonts are licensed. Stock photographs are licensed. A theme may carry its own terms. That is true of nearly every website, expensive ones included, and it rarely limits anything you would want to do. It only matters if somebody says the site cannot be moved for that reason, which is almost never the real reason.

Put it right while everybody is still friendly

Send one polite message and ask for the following. There is nothing rude in it, and a good supplier will not blink.

• The registrar my domain is held with, and the login, with the account email changed to mine
• Confirmation that I am listed as the registrant, not the agency or the developer
• The hosting company, and an administrator login in my name rather than a shared one
• A recent copy of the site files and the database, sent to me to keep
• Where my email is hosted, and whether that account is in my name
• Written confirmation that I own the website and may move it at any time
• The renewal dates for the domain and the hosting, so I can put them in my own calendar

Store the answers somewhere that is not only your inbox: a password manager, or a sheet of paper in the folder with your insurance. That way a future you, on a bad morning, finds it in a minute.

Questions people ask

How do I find out who owns my domain name?

Search your address in a public domain lookup or on any registrar's site. That tells you which company holds it and when it expires. Then check whether you can log in and receive the password reset, which is the part that really decides control.

Does the person who built my website own it?

It depends on what you agreed, and most small jobs never agreed anything in writing. Ask plainly, get the answer in writing, and treat the domain account as the thing that actually settles it.

Can a web designer hold my website hostage?

Somebody holding the accounts can make life difficult, which is why they are worth moving into your name while relations are good. If they hold the domain and the files and will not release them you can usually rebuild, but you would rather not.

If I stop paying my web company, do I lose my site?

If the site and the domain are in your name, no, you move it. If they are not, quite possibly yes. That question alone is a good reason to check today.

Do I own my business email address?

You own it if you own the domain it ends in. If it ends in a free provider's name, you have an account with that provider rather than something you own.

Should the domain be in my name or my company's name?

Your company's, if you trade as one, with a contact address that will still be read if a member of staff leaves. Either is far better than a supplier's name.