Notes · Buying a website
Who owns your website? 5 questions to ask any web company before you sign
Most owners find out who owns their website the day they try to leave. The developer stopped answering. The agency wants a fee to "release" the domain. The site was built on a platform that only works if you keep paying. None of that is a surprise if you asked five questions up front. Here they are, with the answers a fair company should give, including us.
The short answer
| Ask | Good answer | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Whose name is the domain in? | Yours, in an account you can log into | Theirs, "for convenience" |
| 2. What do I get if I cancel? | A working export of the site, plus the domain | "The site is tied to our platform" |
| 3. Who owns the words and photos? | You, in writing | Silence, or "we retain all rights" |
| 4. Can another developer take over? | Yes, standard code or a common platform | Proprietary builder nobody else can edit |
| 5. Who holds the logins? | You have admin on everything; they have access | They hold the only keys |
1. Whose name is the domain registered in?
The domain is the one thing you cannot rebuild. Everything else on a website can be redone in a few weeks. If yourbusiness.com is registered in a web company's account, you don't own your address on the internet. They do. You can't move the site, point it at a new host, or even renew it without their cooperation.
The right setup: the domain is registered to you or your business, in a registrar account with your email on it. The web company can be added as a manager so they can handle the technical settings. That's how we do it. If a company insists the domain has to live in their account, ask why. There's no technical reason for it.
If you already have a site and don't know the answer, look up your domain at a WHOIS lookup site or ask the company directly. Do it this week.
2. What exactly do I get if I cancel?
This is the question that separates renting from owning, and it matters more on a subscription than on a one-time build, though it applies to both.
Some national "website for $X a month" services build your site on a platform they own. Cancel, and the site is gone. Not exported, not transferred. Gone. You start from zero with whoever comes next. That's a fine trade if you understood it going in and the price reflected it. It's a bad surprise otherwise.
A fair answer sounds like this: "You get a working export of your pages, images, and content that another developer can host, and we release the domain to you." Get it in writing. Ours is on the FAQ of this site: your domain, your content, and your photos are yours, and if you leave we hand you a working export.
3. Who owns the words and the photos?
Two separate things hide in this question.
The words are usually simple. If you wrote them or paid someone to write them for you, you should own them, and any decent agreement says so. Check anyway, because some contracts quietly say the company retains all rights to "deliverables."
The photos are where owners get caught. By default, the person who takes a photograph owns the copyright, not the person who paid for the session. That's true of the photographer we send too. What you need is either a written license that lets you keep using the images anywhere you want after the relationship ends, or a copyright assignment that makes them yours outright. Ask which one you're getting. If the answer is "you can use them on the site we build," that means you lose them when you leave.
Since we're a photography business first, our position is simple: the photos we take of your business are yours to keep and use. That's the point of taking them.
4. Could another developer take over the site tomorrow?
Imagine the company vanished next month. Could a competent freelancer in Carrollton pick up your site and keep it running? If the site is built with standard code, or on a platform most developers know, the answer is yes. If it's built in a proprietary editor that only that company can log into, the answer is no, and you're locked in regardless of what the contract says.
You don't need to understand the technology to ask this. Just ask: "If I hired someone else, what would you hand them?" The answer should be files, or access to a platform they'd recognize, not a shrug.
5. Who holds the logins?
Domain registrar. Hosting. Google Business Profile. Google Search Console. Analytics. Any email tied to the domain. Each of these is an account, and each one has an owner.
The pattern we see most on sites we audit: the previous developer set everything up under their own email, and now nobody at the business can get in. The Google Business Profile is the worst case, because Google's recovery process for a profile someone else controls is slow and not guaranteed.
You should be the owner or admin on every account. The web company gets manager access so they can do the work. When they stop doing the work, you remove them. That's the whole model.
Subscription or one-time: does it change the answer?
Less than people think. "I'll pay once and own it" is the common instinct, but a one-time build still runs on hosting someone controls, still sits on a platform that may or may not be portable, and still has a domain registered somewhere. We've seen $5,000 one-time sites locked into a builder the client couldn't leave, and $199-a-month sites that export cleanly on request.
Ownership comes from the five answers, not from the payment plan. Ask them of everybody, including us.
Questions owners actually ask
Who should own the domain?
You. Registered in your name or the business's name, in an account you can log into. The web company can be a manager on it, not the owner.
What happens to my site if I cancel a monthly plan?
It depends entirely on the provider, which is why you ask first. A fair one hands you a working export and releases the domain. Some national services own the platform, so cancelling means the site disappears.
Do I own the photos a web company takes for my site?
Only if the agreement says so. Default copyright stays with the photographer. Ask for a license that survives the relationship, or an outright assignment. With us, the photos are yours.
Is a one-time build safer than a subscription?
Not automatically. Plenty of one-time builds are locked into a proprietary builder, and plenty of subscriptions export cleanly. Judge by the five answers.
Not sure what you own right now? Send us your domain. We'll tell you who it's registered to, what platform the site runs on, and whether you could walk away tomorrow. No charge, and you don't have to hire us to get the answer.