Who owns my website, and can I take it with me?

Many small business owners find out who owns their website at the worst possible moment: when they want to change designer, or the designer disappears.

Ownership isn’t one thing. A website is made of several parts, and you can own some and not others. Here’s how to check each one.

The five parts

1. Your domain name (for example, yourbusiness.co.uk)

This is the address people type in. It should be registered in your name, with your email address on the account. If your designer registered it in their own name, they own it, and you’d have to ask them to transfer it. Check with the company that registered it, or for a .uk address, use Nominet’s look-up (Nominet runs .uk).

2. Your words, photos and logo

Words you wrote yourself are yours. Photos, a logo or anything else you paid someone to make are different. GOV.UK explains that when you commission work, the person who created it owns the copyright, not you, unless you agree otherwise in writing. So make sure your agreement says the rights pass to you, and keep your own copy of everything you supplied.

3. The design

The look and layout of your site. The same rule applies: the designer owns it unless your agreement says otherwise. Some designers hand over full rights when you’ve paid. Others keep the rights and only let you use the design while you keep paying. Ask which applies to you.

4. The code (the files that make the site work)

This is the part most people miss. On a website builder you often can’t take it with you at all: Wix says its sites have to run on Wix’s own servers, and Squarespace exports only some of your content. On a custom-built site, you should be able to get the files. Ask: “If I leave, will you give me the complete site files?”

5. The hosting

This is where the site lives and is shown to visitors. It can be on your account or on the designer’s. If it’s on theirs, find out what happens if you stop paying or they stop trading.

Three questions that tell you where you stand

1. If I stop paying you tomorrow, does my site come down? Some services take it down straight away. Others hand it over. You want to know before you sign.
2. Can I have a copy of the site files and my content at any time? The answer should be yes.
3. Is my domain registered in my name? The answer should be yes.

If any of those is unclear, ask in writing and keep the reply.

Why this matters

You’ve put time and money into your site. Ownership decides whether that’s an asset you keep or a rental you lose. It also decides how easily you can move if the relationship doesn’t work out, or if the person who built it retires, gets too busy or is no longer around.

What to look for in an agreement

• Your domain registered to you
• A clear statement of who owns the design and the content
• What you receive if you leave: files, content, login details
• What happens to the site if you stop paying
• Who owns the Google Business Profile, analytics and email accounts connected to the site. These should always be yours.

How we handle it

Your domain is registered in your name, even though we look after it for you. Your words, photos and logo are yours.

If you ever want to move your site somewhere else, we hand everything over: your domain, all your content, and a copy of the website’s files, so someone else can host it.

If you’d like a second opinion on an agreement you’ve already signed, or you’re not sure what you own, get in touch and we’ll tell you what we can see.