Who owns your website? Domain, code and content in your own hands

This is the most uncomfortable call we get: someone wants to move their website over to us and then discovers the domain is registered to their previous studio, the hosting sits on an account they have no access to, and nobody knows where the original photographs are.

This is rarely malice. It happens because nobody asked at the start.

Five questions before you sign

1. Which company ID will the domain be registered to? The right answer is your own.
2. Will I get my own access to the hosting and the CMS? The right answer is yes, with my own username.
3. Do I own the code and may I take it elsewhere? The right answer is yes.
4. Will I be handed the content and the images in their original form? The right answer is yes, at full resolution.
5. What happens if we stop working together? That answer should be written down before the work begins.

The domain matters most

Your domain is your address on the internet. It is also what your email hangs off. If you lose access to the domain you lose the website, the mail and every year of search history all at once.

Check with your registrar right now who the domain belongs to and which email address gets the renewal reminders. If that address belongs to someone who no longer works for you, there is a time bomb ticking.

Your content

Copy, photographs, video and logos should exist on your side, outside the website. If the only copy of your photographs lives inside a CMS that somebody else pays for, you are in a fragile position.

Keep a folder, in the cloud or on a drive, with the originals: the logo in vector format, photographs at full resolution and the copy in an ordinary document.

If the situation is already wrong

1. Start with the domain. Ask politely for a transfer. It is usually a simple process with a transfer key.
2. Get the content out. Save the images and the copy from the site before anything else happens.
3. Look at what you can actually move. A site on a standard platform is usually portable. A site in a closed proprietary system rarely is.
4. If moving it is impossible, treat a rebuild as the chance to do it properly this time.

How we handle it

The domain is registered to you. You get access to everything. The code is yours and you may take it anywhere, including to another studio. We think people should stay with us because they want to, not because they cannot leave.

Frequently asked questions