Who Should Own Your Hosting and Domain?

Two things decide whether you are really in control of your website, and neither shows up in the design: who owns the domain, and whose account the hosting sits in. You find out which way it went on the day you want to change provider, or the day your provider stops answering emails.

Your domain is your address, such as yourcompany.ae. It is registered through a registrar and renewed every year, and whoever is listed as the registrant is the owner. Hosting is the server where your site's files and database live. You can move hosting from one provider to another. A domain you don't own is much harder to get back.

That leads to the one rule that isn't up for negotiation: the domain should be registered in your name, with an email address you control. Everything else is a matter of preference.

It is rarely a dramatic story. The domain was registered by whoever built the site, under their own account. Years later the renewal reminder goes to an inbox nobody reads, or the agency changes hands, or the relationship sours. Suddenly the business is asking permission to use its own address. Because the domain was never in the owner's name, there is nothing to fall back on.

We offer two options, and both come with an NDA.

domain and email renew separately.

Option 1 is the simpler road. There is one place to call, the renewals are handled for you, and a small business site rarely needs more. The price of that simplicity is that the hosting account is ours and we keep an admin login so we can make changes for you. We would rather say that plainly than have you find it in the small print. You can ask for a copy of the site whenever you like.

Option 2 costs a little more each year and takes a bit more admin, but you hold the keys. We set the account up in your name, build the site on it, and you can remove our access whenever you want. It suits businesses with their own IT person, anyone whose company policy says data must sit in their own accounts, and owners who simply sleep better that way.

Neither is the right answer for everyone. If you are unsure, ask yourself one question: if we disappeared tomorrow, would you know how to carry on? Option 2 makes the answer an easy yes. Option 1 makes it a yes as long as you have kept a copy.

Your business email usually lives with your hosting. On Option 1 the first mailbox is included, and a paid business mailbox replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. If you ever move provider, mailboxes need moving too, so make a note of what is on the account before you start. It is the part people forget, and the part customers notice first if it breaks.

Yes. A site on our hosting can be copied to an account in your own name whenever you ask, and you can ask for that copy at any time. The move itself is a short job, but plan it for a quiet day, and keep the old hosting running until you have checked that the new site and your email both work. Deciding now doesn't lock you in.

• Who is the registrant? Look up your domain. Your company name and an email address you control should be listed, not your provider's.
• Is two-step login on? Turn it on for the registrar account and for the hosting account.
• When does it renew, and who gets the reminder? Put the date in your calendar and switch auto-renew on.
• Who has admin access? Ask for the list, and remove anyone who no longer needs it.
• What do you get at the end? The code and the content should be handed over when the project finishes, and ownership of the code should pass to you on final payment.
• What happens to your data? Ask for written confirmation that your provider holds nothing of yours once they have finished.

It should be boring. The code and your content are handed over at completion. Once the final invoice is paid, ownership of the code passes to you. Your data is removed from our systems, and on request we confirm in writing that we hold nothing of yours. The same questions are worth putting to any provider you are comparing us with. If the answers are vague, treat that as an answer.

More detail on all of this is on our How we protect your work page.