What “owning your website” actually means
A website isn’t one thing. It’s six things, and you can own all of them, some of them, or none of them. Most business owners I talk to in Oakland and Genesee County own one or two and assume they own all six.
The six pieces are:
- Your domain name — the URL itself. Registered to you, paid by your card.
- Your hosting account — the server or platform the site lives on. In your name, billed to your card.
- Your site’s code or content — the actual files, or on a platform, the content you can export.
- Your Google Business Profile — the local map listing. Verified to your account.
- Your analytics — Google Analytics or equivalent, where your email is the admin.
- Your domain DNS — where the domain is told to point. Same registrar account as #1, ideally.
If any of these are in your web designer’s name, your platform’s name, or a relative’s name, you don’t fully own your website.
The 5-minute self-audit
Run through this list right now. Most owners can’t answer two or more of these without calling someone.
| What to check | Where to check it |
|---|---|
| Domain name | Log into the registrar (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Google Domains/Squarespace, etc.) using your credentials. If you don’t have credentials, the domain isn’t in your name. |
| Hosting account | Log into Netlify / Vercel / SiteGround / Bluehost / WP Engine / wherever the site is hosted. If only your web designer has the password, you don’t own the hosting. |
| Site code or content export | For static sites: where is the GitHub repo, and is your account an owner? For Squarespace/Wix/WordPress: can you export the site (or pages/content) without your designer’s help? |
| Google Business Profile | business.google.com — sign in. Is the listing in your account, and are you listed as Primary Owner? |
| Analytics | analytics.google.com — sign in. Are you listed as an admin with edit access, or just a viewer (or not listed at all)? |
| DNS / nameservers | Inside your registrar, look at the DNS or nameserver settings. Are you able to make changes without contacting anyone? |
If any answer above is “I don’t know” or “my designer handles that,” you have an ownership gap.
Why renting costs you
A small business that rents its website pays in five different ways, and most owners only notice the first one until something goes wrong.
- Price hikes you can’t escape. Squarespace and Wix raise prices on a schedule. Web designers raise retainers. If you can’t take your site somewhere else, you pay whatever they ask.
- Slow updates that bottleneck your business. Changing a phone number takes a week because it has to go through your designer. Adding a new service waits for the next billing cycle.
- Platform shutdowns. Tools die. Companies pivot. If your site is built on a platform that shuts down (it happens more than you’d think), you start over from scratch.
- Designer drama. Your designer retires, raises prices, gets too busy, has a falling-out with you, or just stops returning calls. Without ownership, your only option is to start over with someone new.
- Acquisition headache. If you ever sell the business, the buyer’s lawyer will ask “does the seller own the website assets?” A “no” or a complicated “sort of” can reduce the price or kill the deal.
How to take ownership back
Here’s the order of operations to fix this without breaking your site. Do them one at a time, with a backup, and don’t panic if the current designer pushes back — they’re not entitled to keep what’s yours.
- Get the domain in your name first. Initiate a transfer to a registrar account you control (Namecheap and Cloudflare are both good). This usually takes 5–7 days and unlocks everything else.
- Move the GBP into your account. Inside Google Business Profile, request ownership transfer. If your designer is the current owner, they have 7 days to approve or it transfers anyway.
- Get analytics access. Have whoever currently administers Google Analytics add your email as an admin. Then remove them later if you’re leaving.
- Get a copy of your site or content. If it’s code, ask for the repo or a zip. If it’s on a platform, export. If you can’t get either, you may need to rebuild — not great, but a one-time cost.
- Move hosting last. Once you have everything else, you can move hosting on your own schedule without service interruption.
What it costs to do this right from the start
If you’re hiring a new designer or rebuilding, here’s what to require in writing before any money changes hands:
- Domain registered in your name, your card, day one.
- Hosting account in your name, your card.
- Code / content delivered to you (GitHub repo with you as owner, or full export).
- Google Business Profile in your account, you as Primary Owner.
- Analytics access with admin permissions on your email.
- A written handoff document listing all logins, recovery emails, and renewal dates.
- No required monthly retainer to keep the site running.
That’s the bar. Any designer worth hiring will already work this way. The ones who push back are the ones who depend on lock-in.
If you want me to look at your current setup and tell you which of the six pieces you actually own — and what it would take to claim the rest — book a free conversation. I do this audit before we even get on the phone. You can also see how I build sites with full ownership baked in from day one.