Guides
Is my website's domain mine?
Only if you are the registrant at the registrar. If the agency or whoever built your site registered it in their name, legally it is theirs, and with it your web address and your email. It takes a few minutes to check and is fixed with a change of registrant.
Why it matters
- The domain is the address of your website and of your email. Whoever controls it controls both.
- If the agency closes, stops answering or you part on bad terms, it can take months to get it back, or never happen.
- If nobody renews it in time, it expires: the site and the email stop working and, after a while, anyone can buy it.
How to check
- Do you have a login at the registrar, the company the domain is paid to? If not, that is a bad sign.
- Does the renewal invoice come to you?
- Ask whoever manages it which name is listed as the registrant. The public lookup (whois) hardly ever shows it any more, because of data protection.
How to fix it
- If it is in your account but in someone else's name: ask for a change of registrant from the registrar itself.
- If it is in someone else's account: they have to hand it over. To move it to your account, ask them to unlock it and give you the authorisation code (also called the EPP code).
- Meanwhile, the site and the email keep working: changing registrant or registrar does not cut them off.
What I do
The domains of the sites I build are registered in the client's name and account from day one. If you stop working with me one day, it is still yours and you do not have to ask me for anything. And if I replace an existing site whose domain someone else holds, I move it into your name.
Related guides
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