Do You Actually Own Your Website? The Questions That Save You Later
The three ownership traps: designers who register your domain in their name, platforms you can never leave with your site, and contracts that hold your rankings hostage.
Three questions, and you need yes to all of them. Is the domain registered in YOUR name? Can you take the site files and content somewhere else? Can you leave without a contract stopping you? Miss any one and the business asset you think you bought is actually rented, and you find out at the worst possible moment: when you try to leave.
Trap 1: your domain is in someone else’s name
The domain is the deed to your online presence: whoever controls it controls your email, your rankings and your ability to move. Designers registering client domains under their own account is depressingly common, sometimes lazy, sometimes leverage. Check right now: run a WHOIS lookup on your own domain (or just use our checker as a starting point and ask us to look). If the registrant is not your business, fix it while things are friendly. With us, domains are registered in your name and ABN from day one, we just manage the renewals (from $30/yr as part of Hosting & Care).
Trap 2: the platform owns the site
On Wix, Squarespace and most builders, you can never take the site with you. Ever. Export gets you text and images at best; the design, structure and any SEO equity stay behind. It is the defining difference in WordPress vs the builders: a WordPress site is files and a database you can move to any host on earth. Rented platforms are fine, knowingly, for a hobby. For a business asset, read the fine print before you build on it.
Trap 3: the contract owns you
Watch for: hosting “included” at inflated rates you cannot leave, sites licensed rather than sold (“you own the content, we own the theme”), maintenance lock-ins with exit fees, and the quiet one, no handover clause, so leaving means starting again. The scripted questions to ask any designer before signing are in choosing a web designer.
The ownership checklist
| Check | How | Green flag |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | WHOIS lookup on your domain | Your business name + ABN as registrant |
| Registrar access | Ask for the login or delegation | You can access it, even if they manage it |
| Site files | Ask: “can I get a full copy today?” | “Yes” without conditions |
| Content | Check your agreement | Explicitly yours |
| Exit | Ask what leaving looks like | Handover, no fees, no hostage-taking |
How we handle it (so you can compare)
Your domain in your name. Your site, your content, yours outright from the day the invoice is paid. Hosting & Care is $275 a year and you can leave it any year, with a full copy of everything. The one nuance in our stack: the free starter site inside TradeProof becomes yours after 6 months on the plan, which we say out loud on the page rather than in fine print. Ownership is not a premium feature. It is the baseline.
Not sure what you actually own? Book a discovery call and we will run the checklist on your setup for free, before it matters, instead of after.