A designer stops answering email. The employee who "did the website" moves on. A relative set it all up years ago under their own Gmail. Then something needs changing, and the business finds out that its domain, its Google listing or its email account is in someone else's name.
ICANN, which sets the rules domain registrars follow, answers this in its FAQ. If a developer registered your domain for you, they may have used their own contact details, "even if you have paid them," and be listed as the domain's holder (ICANN).
Here's what to hold in your business's own name, who else gets in, how to check, and how to get things back.
Owners and users
Almost every service below has two kinds of access. An owner controls the account itself: who else gets in, and whether it exists at all. A user, manager or admin can do the work but can't lock the owner out.
Make your business the owner, under a login it controls, and everyone who works on it (designer, marketer, bookkeeper, employee) gets their own login with the least access the job needs. Don't share your password instead. Google says each person needs their own Google Account to manage a Business Profile "without the need to share your password" (Google). Separate logins let you remove one person without changing everything.
What to hold, at a glance
Your domain
You never own a domain outright. ICANN compares registering one to leasing it: you keep it by renewing before it expires. The person or company that holds the rights is the registrant, also called the Registered Name Holder (ICANN). That name needs to be your business's, in a registrar account you log in to.
To check:
- Look up your domain at ICANN Lookup. It shows your registrar's name, and its dates can include when the registration expires. Contact details may be hidden: ICANN says some registration data is visible only to people approved to see it (ICANN Lookup FAQ).
- Log in to that registrar yourself. If you can't, or the registrant isn't your business, fix that first.
Is That Domain Renewal Notice Real? covers keeping the renewal current once it's yours.
DNS: where your domain points
DNS records tell the internet where your website and your email live. They're stored on your domain's nameservers, and you change the nameservers at your registrar (Cloudflare). So whoever controls the registrar account decides where DNS lives. A designer or host can manage your records day to day; as long as the registrar account is yours, you can point the nameservers somewhere else.
If you ever do, copy every record first. Cloudflare warns that its automatic scan for existing records isn't guaranteed to find them all. A missing mail record means missing email. Domain, Hosting, Website, Email: What's the Difference? explains the records.
Hosting and the site itself
Hosting is rented. If you pay a host directly, the account should be in your business's name, with your card on it. If your designer hosts the site, as I do on my plans, what matters is your right to take the site elsewhere.
The design, the words and the code are a separate question, and the answer is whatever your agreement says. With no agreement, don't assume. The U.S. Copyright Office explains that the author of a work is ordinarily the person who created it. Work an employee does as part of the job belongs to the employer. Work you commission from a freelancer is yours from the start only if it fits one of nine categories the law lists and you both signed a written agreement saying so (Circular 30). Transferring a copyright later generally has to be in writing, signed by the owner (Circular 1).
So get it in writing: who owns the design and code, and when you get a copy. This is general information, not legal advice.
Your Google listings and data
Google Business Profile. A profile can have several owners but only one primary owner. Managers can do nearly everything else, but can't add or remove people or delete the profile (Google). Check under More, then Business Profile settings, then People and access. Your business should be the primary owner. A new owner waits 7 days before they can remove other people or transfer primary ownership.
Google Search Console. Search Console has owners and users. A verified owner proved ownership with a token, such as a file on the site or a DNS record; a delegated owner was added by another owner (Google). Check Settings, then Users and permissions.
Google Analytics. Roles run from Administrator down to Viewer, and only an Administrator can add or change users (Google). In Admin, open Access Management and check that your business holds Administrator at the account level, which covers every property under it. Analytics won't let the last Administrator delete themselves, so whoever holds it has to add you.
Email and payments
Business email. In Google Workspace, a super admin can manage every part of the account, including other admins' passwords. Google says at least one user must be a super admin and recommends at least two (Google). One of them should be you.
Stripe. A Stripe account has exactly one Account Owner, who can do everything, including closing the account, and only the owner can hand ownership to someone else. An Administrator can do almost everything else (Stripe). When you invite people, Stripe's advice is: "Grant the lowest permission required by the user to perform their job" (Stripe).
Getting access back
The domain
Ask whoever holds it to make your business the registrant. That's a change of registrant, and under ICANN's Transfer Policy the registrar confirms it with both the current and the new registrant. Afterward the registrar must lock the domain against moving to another registrar for 60 days, unless it let the registrant opt out beforehand. If the domain is also moving to a different registrar, the policy says to request that move before the change of registrant.
If the person won't cooperate or can't be found, go to the registrar. ICANN says you may need to show proof that you paid the developer to prove you're the rightful registrant (ICANN). If a registrar refuses a transfer for a reason you think is wrong, ICANN takes complaints, though it says it can't return a lost domain to you itself. These ICANN rules cover generic domains such as .com; country-code domains such as .us follow their own registry's rules.
Your Business Profile
If someone else owns your verified profile, Google lets you request ownership. Go to business.google.com/add, enter your business's name and address, choose it, and select Request access when Google says someone else may manage it. The current owner gets 3 days to respond. If they don't, you may get the option to claim the profile yourself, though Google says that isn't always available (Google). A service-area business with no shopfront contacts Google's support instead.
Search Console
If the only verified owner has left, verify ownership yourself, by adding your own token to the site or its DNS. Then remove the old owners and their tokens: as long as a removed owner's token stays on the site, they can verify again (Google).
Everything else
For Analytics, Workspace and Stripe, the simplest route is for whoever holds the top role to add you or hand it over. Ask while they're still answering their email.
How I handle it
On my plans, ownership is written into the terms:
- Your domain is yours from the start. You register it in your own name, in your own account with a registrar, and point it to Cloudflare, where I set up and manage its DNS records. The registrar account stays with you.
- The design, pages and code are yours once the build fee is paid in full and the site launches, and I hand over a copy of the code repository whenever you ask after launch. Until the fee is paid in full, they belong to Popproxx.
- I keep my own tools. The components and templates I use across projects stay mine, and you get a permanent license to keep using the ones in your site. What you give me, such as text, photos and logos, stays yours.
- Hosting comes with the $79/mo care plan, month to month. Either of us can end it with 30 days' written notice, and if you end it, I hand over your code and you host the site wherever you like.
- If I set up your business email, the $150 Google Workspace setup on the add-ons page, it's done in your own Google account.
Plans start at $2,400 for 5 pages; Deluxe is $4,080 for 7 and Premium $6,720 for 10. Each is one build fee, paid in full for 10% off or half now and half before launch. See the plans, or start your project.
