Who Owns Your Website? The 10-Minute Check (2026)

The quote I had to send last month came to ₹58,000, and almost none of it was for design work. A manufacturing company wanted a few changes to a site that was four years old. Simple stuff, two days at most. Except the domain was registered in their old developer's personal name, the hosting sat on his reseller account, nobody had the source code, and he had stopped answering his phone sometime in 2024. We weren't quoting for the changes. We were quoting to rebuild the site on a domain they could actually control.

This is the most expensive common problem I see, and it has nothing to do with code. The website works fine. The business just doesn't own it. For years that costs nothing, which is exactly why nobody checks. Then the developer moves on, or doubles the renewal, or there is a disagreement, and a simple brochure site turns into a hostage.

The check takes about ten minutes. You can do all of it yourself today, with no technical skill and nothing to install. I run a web development agency, so I am one of the people who holds this access for clients. Everything below applies to us as much as to anyone else, and a good developer will have no problem at all with you asking.

A website is four accounts, not one thing

People think of a website as a single thing they bought. It is really four separate accounts, usually at four different companies, and they come apart easily.

• The domain name, your address on the internet, held at a registrar like GoDaddy, BigRock, Namecheap or Hostinger. This is the one that matters most.
• The hosting, the computer your site's files sit on. Your DNS settings often live here too.
• The website itself: the admin login for WordPress or Shopify, or the source code if it was custom built.
• The Google accounts: Analytics, Search Console and your Google Business Profile, the listing people see on Maps.

Losing the domain is the serious one. Lose your hosting and you can move the files somewhere else. Forget your WordPress password and it can be reset. Lose the domain and your web address and every email address on it belong to someone else, and there is no technical way around that.

The ten-minute check

1. Who is the domain registered to?

Open any free WHOIS lookup site and type in your domain. For a .com you will usually see the registrar's name, the registration and expiry dates, and either the registrant's details or a privacy service hiding them. Privacy protection is normal and not a warning sign on its own. What you want is the registrar, so you know which company holds the name, and the administrative email address if it is shown.

If that admin email is your developer's personal Gmail rather than an address at your own company, the domain is not in your control, whatever the invoice says. For .in domains the public WHOIS shows less, so the quicker route is to ask your developer plainly: which registrar is our domain at, and which email is on the account? A straight answer in one line is a good sign. A vague answer is also an answer.

2. Can you actually log in to the registrar?

Knowing the registrar is not the same as having access to it. Go to that registrar's website and try a password reset using your own business email. If the reset link arrives, the account is yours. If nothing arrives, the account belongs to somebody else and your domain is sitting inside it.

3. Who does the hosting bill come from?

Ask for the hosting login, or just look at who invoices you. If your developer sends a bill on their own letterhead and you have never once had an email from the hosting company itself, your site is on their account, most likely a reseller plan shared with their other clients. That is common and perfectly workable, as long as you can get your files out when you want to leave. If it is a reseller account, ask for a full backup now rather than later: files and database, and then once a quarter.

4. Do you have an admin login of your own?

For WordPress, open yoursite.com/wp-admin and sign in. Your account should be an Administrator in your own name, not a shared login that everyone passes around. On Shopify you should be the store owner, not a staff member. For a custom built site there may be no login to speak of, which is fine, but then you need the code: ask which repository it lives in and for access to it, or at minimum a zip of the current code and a copy of the database.

5. Are the Google accounts in your name?

Sign in to Google Analytics and Search Console with your business email and see whether your website is listed. Do the same with your Google Business Profile. This is the one people discover too late. Years of traffic history cannot be recovered if you lose the account, and a Business Profile left in a former agency's hands can still be edited after you have parted ways. Getting it back means a claim and a wait. If someone else holds these, ask to be added as an owner rather than a user, and then remove them once you are set up.

Ask for it in writing, once

Most of the time there is nothing sinister going on. The developer set everything up with their own email years ago because it was faster, and nobody revisited it since. A short, friendly message usually sorts the whole thing out. Here is one you can copy, change the details and send today.

textSubject: Our website and domain account details

Hi <name>,

Could you send me the account details for our website so we have
them on record? Specifically:

1. Domain: which registrar it is at, and the email on that account
2. Hosting: the hosting company and the email on that account
3. An admin login for the website in my name (<your email>)
4. Owner access to Google Analytics, Search Console and our
   Google Business Profile for <your email>
5. A current backup: the website files and the database

Nothing is changing on our side. I would just like these in our
records rather than only in yours. Happy to do it on a call if
that is easier.

Thanks,
<your name>

After that, ask for the domain and the Google accounts to be moved into accounts in your name, and keep paying whoever looks after the site. Owning the accounts and having someone maintain them are two separate things, and you want both. A developer who maintains your site well and holds nothing hostage is worth keeping.

If the domain is already in someone else's name

You have three routes, roughly in order of what they cost you.

1. Ask for a transfer. The current holder unlocks the domain at their registrar and sends you an authorisation code, usually called an EPP code or auth code. You start the transfer at your own registrar, paste in the code and approve the confirmation email. It takes about five to seven days and costs roughly ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 for a .com, which also adds a year to the registration. A domain cannot be transferred within 60 days of being registered or last transferred, so a recent move means waiting.
2. Ask for an account change instead. If the domain can stay at the same registrar, most of them allow moving it between accounts internally. It is faster than a full transfer and usually free, but the current holder has to start it.
3. Give up the name and move. If they refuse, or they have simply gone quiet, register a close variant, move the site across and redirect whatever you can. You lose some search ranking and any email addresses on the old domain, which genuinely hurts, but you stop paying rent on your own name. It is often cheaper than a fight.

There are formal dispute processes, the INDRP for .in domains and the UDRP for .com, but they exist for real bad-faith cases such as someone registering your brand name to resell it. For most small business websites they cost more in fees and months than the name is worth. If somebody is holding your domain and asking for money, speak to a lawyer before you pay anything.

Red flags worth acting on this week

• Your developer will not tell you which registrar the domain is at.
• The renewal invoice has no line items, just a total and a deadline.
• You have no login of your own to anything, only a WhatsApp number you message for changes.
• Your Google Business Profile shows a manager email you do not recognise.
• Nobody can produce a backup, or the most recent one is from the year the site launched.
• Your agreement, if there is one, does not say who owns the code and the accounts when the relationship ends.

What this should cost you

Asking costs nothing. Handing over account details is a ten minute job for a developer and should not show up on a bill. A domain transfer runs about ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 and includes a year of renewal. An account change at the same registrar is usually free. A backup is free.

If you are being quoted a fee to release your own accounts, that is not a technical charge, it is leverage. Our renewal charges guide breaks down what a fair yearly bill looks like, and the cost calculator will give you a rough number if it turns out you do need to rebuild on a domain you control.

Do this check before you need it. Every problem on this page is twenty minutes of admin while the relationship is fine, and weeks of expensive mess once it is not.

The short version

A website is four accounts: the domain, the hosting, the site's own login or source code, and your Google accounts. All four should be in your business's name with you as the owner, no matter who maintains them day to day. Check WHOIS for the domain, try a password reset at the registrar, confirm you have an admin login of your own, and open Analytics, Search Console and your Business Profile with your own email. If anything is in somebody else's name, ask for it in writing today, while everyone is still on good terms.