Who owns your website?
Three things you can check tonight — and what to do if the answer is not you.
5 min read
We run into it a couple of times a year. A company wants to change supplier, or simply move their site, and discovers they cannot. Not because anyone is being difficult — but because nobody ever asked whose name was on things.
There are three things, and they are independent. You can own one and not the other two.
1. The domain
The most important of the three. Whoever is listed as registrant owns the address — not whoever pays the bill, and not whoever built the site.
Check it now: go to punktum.dk and look up your own domain. It says who the registrant is. If it is your company name and your CVR, you are free. If an agency's name is there, you do not own your own address.
If that is the case: ask to have it transferred. It is a standard procedure and most say yes without argument. The ones who do not have just told you something important.
2. The code and the design
Here it gets murkier, because it is rarely written down anywhere.
The question is not "can I get the files". It is "may I use them somewhere else". An agency can happily hand you a copy while considering the rights theirs.
This belongs in the agreement. If it is not there, write an email today and ask for one answer in writing: "Do you confirm that we may freely use, change and move the code and design to another supplier?" Keep the reply.
3. The hosting
The easiest to solve, and the one people discover last. If the site sits on your agency's own server, under their account, you cannot move it without their help.
That is not a problem in itself, as long as the relationship is good. It becomes a problem the day it is not.
Check it: do you have a login to the hosting? Is the bill in your name? If no to both, ask for access.
The last thing people forget
Your content. Images, copy, customer records, order history.
Ask how you get a copy out, and ask before you need it. "We can export that" is not an answer. Ask to see what an export actually contains.
Short checklist
- Look the domain up at punktum.dk — is your CVR the registrant?
- Ask in writing for confirmation that the code and design can be moved
- Do you have your own login to the hosting?
- Can you get your content out, and have you seen how?
Four lines. Ten minutes. The day you need the answer, it is too late to ask.