Who Owns Your Website? Domain, Hosting, and Files Explained

Ownership of a website splits into three parts, and you need to check each one on its own. A business owner called me last spring because her designer had stopped answering emails. Her site was still online. She wanted to move it somewhere else. Her domain was registered under the designer's GoDaddy account, the hosting was on the designer's reseller plan, and the site was built on a page builder that doesn't export. She owned nothing except the words she'd written and the photos she'd sent him.

That situation is the default outcome when nobody asks about ownership before the project starts. The fix takes ten minutes of checking and one clear conversation, and it's a lot cheaper to have that conversation now than after a falling-out.

The three parts of a website and who owns each one

When people say "my website," they mean one thing. Legally and technically it's three, and the rules differ for each.

1. The domain name

Your domain (yourbusiness.com) is leased from a registrar like Cloudflare, Namecheap, Porkbun, or GoDaddy. The person who controls it is whoever is listed as the registrant and whoever can log in to the registrar account. If your designer bought it under their own account "to make things easier," they own it. You are renting it from them, whether they meant it that way or not.

This is the piece that matters most. You can rebuild a site. You can switch hosts in an afternoon. You cannot get your domain back from someone who refuses to hand it over, short of a dispute process that costs more than most small business websites.

2. The hosting account

Hosting is the server where the files live. Ownership here is simple: whoever has the login owns it. If the account is in your name, under your email, on your card, it's yours. If the designer hosts you on their reseller plan and bills you monthly, you're a tenant. That's fine while the relationship is good. It means you have no access to your own files the day it isn't.

3. The website files and code

This is the part almost nobody reads about before signing. Under U.S. copyright law, the person who creates a work owns it. A freelance designer who writes your site's code owns that code by default. The "work made for hire" rule that gives employers ownership of employee work does not automatically apply to independent contractors. The U.S. Copyright Office spells this out in Circular 9: for a contractor's work to count as work for hire, it has to fall into a narrow category and there has to be a signed written agreement saying so. A website usually doesn't qualify on its own, which means you need an explicit assignment of copyright in the contract.

Without one, you've paid for a license to use the site, in practice. The designer could reuse the code for another client. They could, in theory, refuse to hand over the source. Most wouldn't. Some do.

How to check who owns your website in 10 minutes

You don't need a lawyer or a developer for this. Three lookups.

1. Check the domain. Go to lookup.icann.org and enter your domain. The result shows the registrar (the company holding it) and the expiration date. Registrant contact details are usually redacted for privacy now, so the real test is the next step: try to log in to that registrar with an email you control. If you can't, and you don't know who can, you don't control your domain.
2. Check the hosting. Look at your bank or card statements for the last three months. If you see a charge from Cloudflare, SiteGround, Hostinger, Kinsta, or a similar host, you likely have an account there. Find the login. If the only charge is to your designer, ask them directly: "Which company hosts my site, and is the account in my name?"
3. Check the files. Ask for a complete copy of the site. For a hand-coded site that's a folder of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images, and it should be delivered as a zip within a day. For a WordPress site, it's a full export plus the database. For a builder like Wix or Squarespace, the honest answer is that there are no portable files. You can export content, but the design and functionality stay on their platform.

What to do if the answer is "not you"

If the domain is in someone else's account, ask for a registrar transfer (or a push to your account at the same registrar, which is faster). Under the ICANN transfer policy, the current registrant unlocks the domain and gives you an authorization code; you start the transfer from your own registrar account; it completes in about five days. A cooperative designer does this in one email. Do it before anything else, and do it while you're still on good terms.

If the hosting is under their account, open your own hosting account, get the files, and point the domain at the new server. The site goes dark for nothing if it's done in the right order: new host first, then DNS change, then cancel the old plan.

If the files were never delivered, ask in writing for the complete source plus image originals. If your contract didn't assign copyright, ask for a short written assignment now. Most designers will sign one for a finished, paid project because they have no use for your site's code. If one refuses, that tells you something, and you still have options: the content (your words, your photos, your logo) was yours all along, and a new site can be built from it. If your site is showing its age anyway, a rebuild in your own name can cost less than fighting over the old one.

Five questions to ask before you hire anyone

These belong in the first conversation, before price. I go into the broader hiring checklist in how to choose a web designer in Las Vegas, but ownership is its own short list.

• "Will the domain be registered in my name, in my account?" The only acceptable answer is yes. If you already own a domain, they should ask for DNS access, never the login.
• "Whose name is the hosting account in?" Yours. They can have a collaborator login you can remove later.
• "Do I get the source files when the project is done?" For custom sites: yes, a full zip. For builder platforms: ask what export is possible and decide if you're fine with the answer.
• "Does the contract assign copyright to me on final payment?" Look for the words "assign" or "assignment." "License" is a different, weaker thing.
• "If we part ways, what do I need from you to keep the site running?" The right answer is "nothing, it's all in your accounts already."

How I handle ownership

Every site I build is hand-coded HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which means it's a folder of files that runs on any host. On delivery, you get the full source as a zip. The domain is registered in your account (I'll walk you through buying one if you don't have it). Hosting is a free Cloudflare Pages account in your name; I keep a collaborator login you can revoke whenever you want. The contract assigns copyright to you on final payment. Pricing is flat and published, with no monthly fee tied to me, because I'd rather you stay because the work is good than because leaving is hard.

If you want to see what that looks like in practice, the sites on my work page all run on accounts their owners control. If you're weighing a DIY builder against hiring someone, ownership is one of the real trade-offs: the builder is easy to start and hard to leave; a custom site is the reverse.