webosentezDESIGN & ENGINEERING

Who Owns Your Website: Code, Domain and Server

The most expensive problems in a web project are not technical. They are about whose name holds the domain, the server, the accounts and the code.

PUBLISHED
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2 min
TOPIC
Process and Ownership
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Webosentez

When a web project goes badly, the expensive part is rarely the design or the code. It is discovering that the domain sits in a supplier account, the ad history belongs to someone else, and nobody can hand over the source because it was never arranged.

None of this needs mistrust to go wrong. It goes wrong through defaults: whoever set it up used their own account because it was faster, and nobody wrote anything down.

Where each digital asset should sitWHO SHOULD HOLD ITDomainRegistered to the company, on a company addressServerCompany account, or regular backup accessAd accountCompany owned, agency added as managerSource codeTransferred at delivery, with documentationAnalytics accountsCompany as owner, history staysRed mark: ownership that has to stay with the company
Set up correctly at the start, these five cost nothing. Set up wrongly, they become a negotiation on the day you part.

Domain and server

The domain should be registered to the company, on a company email address that outlives any individual. Renewal notices should reach someone who reads them. A lapsed domain is recoverable at a price and sometimes not at all.

The server can be managed by whoever runs the site, but you should either own the account or have regular backups you can actually restore from. A backup nobody has tested is not a backup.

Accounts and code

Analytics and advertising accounts should be created under your company with the agency added as a manager. Done the other way round, the history that makes future campaigns cheaper leaves the moment the relationship does.

Source code should be delivered, in a repository in your name, with enough documentation that another team could pick it up. Ask for that at the start; asked at the end it becomes a favour, and favours are negotiable.

A structure set up correctly changes nothing while the relationship works, and everything if it stops.

What the contract should say

Four lines cover most of it. The domain and hosting accounts are registered to the company. Analytics and ad accounts are owned by the company. Source code and its documentation transfer on final payment. No licence is retained over delivered work.

None of these are unusual requests and none should cause friction. If they do, that reaction is itself information.

What to do now

Check four things this week. Who is the registrant on your domain. Who owns your analytics property. Who owns your ad account. Where the source code lives. If any answer is a supplier name, fix it while everyone is still friendly.

If you inherited a setup and are not sure what you actually control, we can go through it with you and tell you plainly where you stand.

NEXT STEP

Want to talk about this for your own project?

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FREQUENTLY ASKED

The questions that come up most often on this subject, answered briefly.

The company. Registered on a company email address that survives someone leaving, with the renewal reminders going somewhere that is read. A domain sitting in a supplier account is the single most common way companies lose control of their own site.

It can, and it is the wrong way round. When the account belongs to the agency, the spend history and the audience data leave with them. The account should be yours, with the agency added as a manager and removed when the work ends.

Usually yes, and more easily while the relationship is still good. Domains can be transferred, accounts can change owner, code can be moved to a repository in your name. It is an afternoon of work now and a negotiation later.

KEEP READING

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Let's talk about your project.

Scope, timeline and budget are settled in the first conversation. A written proposal follows.

If the work is not a fit for us we say so on that first call, rather than sending a proposal anyway.

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