Insight
Who owns your website if your provider disappears?
It is not the most exciting question to ask about your website, but it might be the most important: if the people who host and look after it disappeared tomorrow, what would you actually be left with? Plenty of businesses do not ask until they need the answer. Here is what to check, and why it matters.
2 min read
The lock-in you do not notice
Website lock-in rarely announces itself. It builds up quietly. The domain was registered by the agency, in the agency’s name. The hosting account is theirs. The site runs on a theme or plugin licence that belongs to them, and nobody at your end has ever had a full admin login. Everything works, so nobody asks.
Then the agency goes quiet, puts its prices up or closes down, and you discover that the thing your customers find you on is not really yours.
The questions worth asking
Put these to whoever runs your website now, and get the answers in writing:
- Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be yours, with the login in your hands.
- Where is the site hosted, and whose account is it? If the hosting is in your provider’s name, you depend on them to move it.
- Do you have your own administrator login? A full admin account on your website, not just an editor’s.
- Who owns the design and any custom code? It should pass to you once it is paid for.
- Are the premium theme and plugins licensed to you or to them? If they are on your provider’s licence, they may stop updating the day you leave.
- If you left, would you get a full copy of the site and its database? And would it cost you anything?
If a provider is cagey about any of these, that is your answer.
Owning it and running it are different things
There is a fair split that protects everyone. You own what is yours: the site, the content, the data and anything built specifically for you. Your provider owns the tools it uses to run things, such as its hosting systems and its software, and runs them for you while you work together.
The important part is that “we look after it for you” never quietly turns into “you cannot leave”. A good arrangement makes leaving easy, even if you would rather not.
How we handle it
We wrote this into our terms. Your domain, your content, your data and the site we build for you are yours from day one, and your domain stays registered in your name.
The plan has a 3-month minimum, then runs month to month with no exit fees. If you cancel, you take everything with you: we give you a complete copy of the site.
If your website sits with a provider right now, ask them the questions above. The answers tell you how safe it really is. And if you do not like what you hear, book a demo.
Speak to a developer, not a salesperson.
Pick a time that suits you and bring whatever you want to ask.
