The short answer
Paying for a website doesn’t automatically mean you own it. Ownership is five separate things: the domain, the hosting, the design and code, the words and photos, and the accounts around them. Check each one, and get the important ones in writing.
This is general information about how things work in the US, not legal advice. Before you sign anything, or if you’re already in a dispute, have a lawyer read the contract.
Whose name is on your domain?
The domain is the one piece you can’t rebuild. If someone else controls it, they control where your clients land and where your email goes.
What matters is who’s listed as the registrant, the “Registered Name Holder.” ICANN, which sets the rules for domain registrars, says that in a dispute, the registrant’s authority “supersedes that of the Administrative Contact.”1 ICANN also says plainly: “It is not recommended that you list website designers, hosting providers, or any other third parties as the registrant(s) of your domain name.”2
To check yours:
- Look up your registrar. Search your domain at lookup.icann.org. The “Registrar” field shows which company holds it.3
- Log in to that registrar yourself. Public lookups often hide the registrant’s name,4 so the only sure check is your own account. If you don’t have a login, that tells you something.
- Check the email on the account. One owner wrote that their developer “registered my domain in my name but used their email. I cannot verify it or use it.”5 The name and the email both need to be yours.
Who owns the design and the words?
Under US copyright law, the person who makes a work owns it unless something says otherwise. The statute: copyright “vests initially in the author or authors of the work.”6
Many owners assume a site they paid for is a “work made for hire,” which would make it theirs. For an outside studio or agency, it usually isn’t. The Copyright Office says a commissioned work only counts if it fits one of nine specific categories and both sides signed a written work-for-hire agreement. “If a work fails to satisfy any of these requirements, it is not a work made for hire.”7 A website isn’t one of the nine by name.
So ownership of the design, code and content normally moves by a signed assignment. The law is clear that a transfer “is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance … is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed.”8 No signed assignment, no transfer.
Which accounts should be in your name?
Your studio can have access to all of these. You should hold the top role on each.
| Account | What to hold |
|---|---|
| Domain registrar | The account itself, with you as registrant and your email on it. |
| Hosting and DNS | An owner login, or at least a written note of who holds it and how to move it. |
| Google Business Profile | Primary owner. Managers can do almost everything except add or remove users.9 |
| Google Analytics | The Administrator role. Editors “can’t manage users.”10 |
| Google Search Console | Verified owner. A property “must have at least one verified owner.”11 |
Google is firm about the Business Profile. Its rules for agencies say “all end customers must retain ownership or co-ownership of their Business Profile at all times,” and an agency must hand back exclusive control within 7 business days of being asked.12
What happens if you leave the platform your site is built on?
Some sites can’t leave the platform they were built on. That isn’t a scandal, but you should know before you build.
- Wix says your content “belongs to you,” but the site “needs to be hosted and operated on Wix’s servers.” You can’t move it to another host.13
- Squarespace exports “certain content,” in WordPress format only. Store pages, product blocks, video blocks, styles and custom CSS don’t come with it.14
- Agency platforms vary by contract. Lawyerist’s review of one large legal-marketing vendor says that if it builds your site, “you do not own your website domain, and you will lose it if you end your contract.”15
What should the contract say before you sign?
A Wyoming State Bar practice article puts the first rule simply: “buy your domain name(s) before you hire a web designer.”16 After that, ask for these in writing.
- The domain is registered to you, with your email, in an account you can log in to.
- A signed assignment of the design, code and content to your business once it’s paid for, or a clear statement of what you’re licensing instead.
- Owner-level access to every account in the table above.
- What happens when you leave: an export of the site and its content, help with redirects, and how much notice either side gives. The NC Bar’s practice center asks: “Is the design portable? Is the content? Images and graphics?”17
- How long you’re committed, and what it costs to end early.
How do you leave an agency without losing your site?
Order matters. Do these before you cancel anything.
- Back up everything. Pages, images, blog posts, forms, and a list of every URL on the site.
- Get into your registrar. Ask for the transfer code if you’re moving. A registrar must give the registrant the code and unlock the domain within five calendar days.18 That rule binds registrars, not agencies, which is why your name needs to be on the domain.
- Transfer before you change details. Changing the registrant can trigger a 60-day transfer lock, so ICANN suggests “completing the transfer process before changing your contact information.”19
- Take over your Google accounts. Become primary owner of the Business Profile, move Analytics into your own account,20 and verify Search Console. Then remove the old owner’s verification tokens, or they can re-verify.11
- Keep your URLs, or redirect them. Moving to a new site without redirects throws away years of search history.
- Then cancel.
What if they won’t hand it over?
- The domain: if you’re the registrant and your registrar won’t release it, you can file a complaint with ICANN.21 ICANN won’t decide who owns a domain, though: it “does not get involved in disputes regarding domain ownership.”22
- The Business Profile: you can request ownership in Google. The current owner gets 3 days to respond, after which you may be able to claim it, though Google says that option “isn’t always available.”23
- The site and its content: that depends on your contract. Take it to a lawyer.
How we handle it
With us, you can own everything outright: the code, the domain and the hosting. Or you can spread the cost over a partnership. We’ll set it up the way that fits, and put it in writing. Either way, the accounts are in your name and you can see everything we’ve built in your portal.
Nobody should have to ask for their own website back.