Who Actually Owns Your Domain? An Uncomfortable Question

The question sounds trivial until it becomes urgent: if your current provider were unreachable tomorrow, could you get into your own website? For a surprising number of businesses the honest answer is no.

The four accounts that have to be yours

• The domain. It should be registered to your company, not to the agency. Whoever is listed as the holder decides where the address points. This is the most important point of all.
• The hosting. The contract and access to the control panel. Without it you cannot download a backup or move anywhere.
• The website's admin account. Your own login with administrator rights, not the provider's shared account.
• The Google Business Profile and Search Console. Both should run on an account you own. Others can be added as users.

How to check this in ten minutes

Look up your domain in your registrar's public lookup and check which name is entered as the holder. Log in to the hosting yourself once. If you do not have your own password, that is exactly the result of the check.

How to manage credentials sensibly

Not in a spreadsheet and not passed around by email. A password manager with a shared company vault costs little and solves the problem permanently. Two factor confirmation for the central accounts matters as well, tied to a device that belongs to you.

The part that counts when someone leaves

When an employee or provider leaves, the access should be removed, not just the password changed that only one person knew anyway. A short list of who has access to what replaces a lot of panic at this point.

If you are unsure which of your accounts genuinely belong to you, we are happy to go through the list together.