Domain, Hosting and Access: How Not to Lose Your Website
The website was built by a friend, a freelancer or a web studio. Everything works, clients come in, and nobody thinks about the technical details. Then the developer stops answering, the domain isn't renewed, and one day the website simply stops opening.
Stories like this happen more often than you'd think, and they could almost always have been avoided. Let's look in plain words at what a website consists of, what should be in your name and which access you should take back from your developer right now.
How businesses lose their websites
Most often a website is lost not because of hacking, but because all the access was with one person:
- The developer disappeared. They changed jobs, moved or stopped answering — and the domain and hosting are in their name.
- The domain wasn't renewed. Reminders went to someone else's email, the domain expired, and someone else registered it.
- Hosting was paid with someone else's card. The card expired or the person stopped paying — and the hosting deleted the website along with its files.
- You stopped working with the web studio. The company that built the website asks for money to hand it over or says the website belongs to them.
In all these cases the business paid for the website, but legally and technically the website didn't belong to it.
What a website consists of
A website isn't one thing but several parts, and each has its own owner:
- Domain — the website address, for example example.com. It's bought from a registrar company and renewed every year. By itself a domain is just an address: its settings say which server the website is on.
- Hosting — the server where the website files are stored. This is where the domain points. Hosting is paid for every month or year.
- Files and database — the website itself: pages, images, texts, requests.
- Services around the website — email on the domain, analytics, search engine accounts, a Telegram bot.
If even one of these parts is in someone else's name, that person can effectively control your website.
The domain must be in your name
The domain is the most important part. Website files can be restored from a backup or rebuilt, but changing the address your clients know, the one on your business cards and social media, is slow and costly: you'll have to update business cards, signs and links, and search engines will get to know the website almost from scratch.
Every domain has a registrant — the person or company that owns it. Only the registrant can renew the domain, transfer it to someone else and change its settings — for example, point the domain to a different server when moving to new hosting. The registrant should be you or your company, and the registrar account should be opened with your email.
You can check when the domain expires and which registrar it's with using a WHOIS service: for international zones like .com, ICANN Lookup works, and for country zones, use the service on the website of any registrar in that zone. The owner's name is usually hidden there, so the best way is to log in to the registrar account and make sure the domain is in your account.
⚠️ Important: if a developer says "the domain is in my name, it's more convenient" — that's a red flag. They can renew and set up the domain with access to your account; they don't need to own it.
Hosting and website files
Hosting works the same way: the account should be opened with your email, and payment should come from your card or account. Then you'll learn about renewals in time, and if you change developers, you'll only need to give access to the new specialist.
You should also have a recent backup of the website — an archive with its files and database. Most hosting providers make backups automatically, but don't keep them for long. Every few months it's worth downloading a copy for yourself: if something happens to the hosting or the account, the website can be restored elsewhere.
What access you should have
A developer needs access to do their work, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have it. Here's what you should keep:
- Domain registrar — the login and password for the account.
- Hosting or server control panel — the login and password.
- Website admin panel — your own account with administrator rights, not just the developer's.
- Email on the domain — access to the panel where mailboxes like info@example.com are created.
- Search engine accounts and analytics — Google Search Console, Yandex Webmaster and analytics counters. You can be added as an owner without taking access away from the developer.
- Telegram bot — the bot should be created from your account or transferred to you via @BotFather.
💡 Tip: check the password recovery email in every service. If it's the developer's address, you won't be able to restore access without them — replace it with your own.
How to store access
Passwords in phone notes or in your chat with the developer are easy to lose. It's safer to keep them in a password manager, for example Bitwarden or KeePass, and to turn on two-factor authentication for the registrar and hosting — these are the most important accounts.
When you finish working with a developer, change the passwords or delete their accounts. It's not a matter of distrust: access to the website should simply be limited to those working on it now.
If the domain is already in someone else's name
If it turns out that the domain and hosting are in the name of a developer or web studio, it's better to sort it out now, while you're still in touch. Ask them to transfer the domain to you: registrars have a procedure for changing the registrant or moving a domain to another account. Hosting can be handed over the same way, or the website can be moved to a new account.
If the developer no longer answers, contact the registrar's support: explain the situation and ask which documents are needed. But transferring a domain without the registrant's consent can be very difficult, so the main thing is not to let it come to that.
⚠️ Important: keep an eye on the domain renewal date. If the domain expires, after a while anyone can register it — and getting the address back will be almost impossible.
Checklist
Check your website against these points:
- the domain is in your registrar account, and you know when to renew it;
- the hosting account is opened with your email, and you can log in to it;
- you have your own administrator account in the website admin panel;
- every service has your email for password recovery;
- you're an owner in Google Search Console, Yandex Webmaster and analytics;
- you have a recent backup of the website;
- all passwords are stored in a safe place, and two-factor authentication is on for the registrar and hosting.
Summary
A website belongs to you only when the domain, hosting and all important access are in your name. A developer can work with your accounts, but you should own them. Checking this takes an hour, while a lost domain sometimes can never be recovered.
🔑 If you're not sure whose name your website is in, message me — I'll check and tell you what needs to be done.
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