If you stopped paying tomorrow, what would you keep?
Nobody asks this at the beginning. Everybody asks it at the end, and by then the answer is fixed.
The short answer
Everything should be registered to the business: the domain, the hosting account, the code, the Google profile, the analytics. If any of it sits in somebody else's account, you are renting that part and the rent has no ceiling.
This is not about trust. It is about what happens when somebody moves on, closes down, or stops answering.
Three things, and they come apart
The domain is the address. Whoever the registrar has on file can move it, sell it, or let it lapse, and nobody else can do anything about it.
The hosting is where the files sit. An account in a studio's name means the site disappears the day that account does.
The code is the site itself. If you cannot download it, you cannot take it anywhere, and a quote to rebuild is the only option you have left.
Check it in 5 minutes
Open a WHOIS lookup and type your domain. It shows who registered it and when it expires. Privacy services hide the name, so if it comes back private, ask who holds the account.
Then find the renewal email. Whoever it lands on is who controls the address, whatever anybody says.
Then ask for a login to the hosting, and a copy of the files. A studio that owns nothing hands both over the same afternoon.
What it looks like when it goes wrong
A shop wants to change designer and finds the domain is in the old one's name. Sometimes it moves in a week. Sometimes it becomes a price.
Or the platform charge stops being worth it and there is no export, because the site was never a set of files, only a subscription with a shop drawn on it.
Ask before you sign, not after
Whose name is on the domain. Whose name is on the hosting. Do I get the code. What happens to all 3 if we stop. Four questions, and the answers should be immediate.
Hesitation on any of them is the answer to all of them.
How ours are set up
Every domain, account and repository we work on is registered to the client from the first day, not to us. Iglisi Watch in Durres owns watch.al, the hosting and the code, and could hand the lot to somebody else this week without asking us.
We would rather be kept than be difficult to leave.
Questions worth asking
My designer says it is easier if they hold the domain.
It is easier, for them. Registering it to you takes about 10 minutes and one card, and after that the renewal notice reaches you rather than somebody you have lost touch with.
The site was free with my hosting package. Do I own it?
Usually not the code. Builder platforms let you export pictures and text and almost never the working site, so moving means rebuilding. Check for an export button before you need one.
What if I have already lost the domain?
It depends who holds it and whether it is expiring. Start with a WHOIS lookup, then a polite written request naming the domain and the date you want it moved. Registrars have a transfer process and it does not need goodwill.
Does owning it mean I have to maintain it?
No. Owning the accounts and paying somebody to look after them are separate decisions, and keeping them separate is the whole point.
Send us your address and we will tell you who the internet thinks owns it. Get a free audit.
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