Web TeamHere’s a question that surprises a lot of business owners. If your web person disappeared tomorrow, could you still get into your website?
For many small businesses, the honest answer is no. The domain is in someone else’s name. The hosting is on their account. The passwords are in their head. It works fine until it doesn’t.
Why this matters
Your website and your email usually depend on the same thing: your domain name. If you lose control of the domain, you can lose both at once.
We’ve seen it happen a few ways:
- A freelancer moves on and stops answering
- A relationship goes sour and they hold the site hostage
- The card on file expires and the domain lapses
- An old employee set it up with their personal email
None of these are rare. And all of them are avoidable.
The pieces you need to own
Your domain name
This is your address online, like yourbusiness.com. It’s registered through a company called a registrar, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Cloudflare.
The account that holds your domain should be in your business name, with an email address you control. Not your web person’s email. Not a personal Gmail of someone who might leave.
Your hosting
Hosting is where your site’s files live. If your developer hosts your site on their own account, you’re a guest. You may not be able to move it or even get a copy.
Ideally the hosting account is yours, and you add your web team as a user.
Your WordPress admin
You should have your own admin login to your site. Even if you never use it. It’s your key to the house.
DNS
DNS is the settings that point your domain to your website and your email. It might live at your registrar or somewhere else, like Cloudflare. Whoever controls DNS controls where your traffic goes. Know where it lives and make sure you can log in.
Google and other accounts
Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and your Google Business Profile should all be owned by your business. Same for your email marketing tool and any form or booking tools. Add others as users. Don’t let them be the owner.
How to check where you stand
Set aside an hour and go through this list.
- Find out who your domain registrar is. You can look it up with a free “whois” tool.
- Log in to the registrar account. If you can’t, find out whose account it is.
- Make sure the domain auto-renews on a card you control.
- Find out who your host is and whose name is on the account.
- Confirm you have your own WordPress admin login.
- Find out where your DNS is managed and confirm you can log in.
- Check that you are the owner on Google Analytics, Search Console, and Google Business Profile.
- Turn on two-factor login on the domain and hosting accounts.
- Write all of this down and keep it somewhere safe, like a password manager.
If someone else holds the keys
Don’t panic, and don’t burn the bridge. Most of the time it’s just how things got set up years ago.
Ask nicely for the domain to be moved to your account. Registrars have a standard transfer process. Ask to be made the owner of your hosting account, or for help moving the site to an account in your name. Ask for your own admin login. If they’re slow to help, keep asking in writing.
How we handle it
At Altitude, every account is in your name. Your domain, your hosting, your Google accounts. We get added as a user so we can do the work. If you ever leave, you keep everything. No hostage situations.
That’s what we mean by “retire the web guy.” You stop depending on one person who holds all the keys.
Not sure who owns what? Book a free 30-minute website audit. We’ll walk through it with you on a call and help you sort it out.