Your domain, your email, your analytics: what you should own and why

A client came to us unable to renew its own domain. The previous vendor had registered it under the vendor's account, the relationship had ended, and the renewal notice was going to an inbox nobody could open.

How a business ends up locked out

It is rarely malice. A web designer registers the domain because it is quicker than walking the owner through it. A marketing company sets up the analytics under its agency account because that is how its dashboard works. An employee creates the Google profile with a personal email and then leaves. Years pass. Then the owner wants to switch vendors, or the vendor closes, or the employee stops answering, and the business discovers that the thing with its name on it belongs to someone else.

The domain case is the worst, because the domain is the address of everything. Email stops working. The website goes dark. Reclaiming it ranges from awkward to impossible. In the case above it was recovered, eventually, and only because a former vendor chose to cooperate. Nobody should have to depend on that.

The analytics case is quieter but costs something too. Years of visitor history, the record of which pages bring in work and which searches bring in calls, sits in an account the business cannot open. Start a new account and the history starts at zero.

The accounts a business must own

The list is short. Every one should be registered to the business, with a login that belongs to the owner, and recovery details that belong to the owner.

• The domain name. Registered in the business's name at a registrar the owner can log into.
• The DNS. The settings that point the domain at the website and the email. Usually at the same registrar or the hosting company, but check.
• Business email. The Google Workspace or Microsoft account, owned by the business, with the owner as the top administrator.
• Website hosting. The account the site runs on, and a copy of the site's code.
• Analytics and Search Console. The Google accounts that record visitors and search performance. History lives here, and history does not transfer if the account belongs to someone else.
• The Google Business Profile. The listing on the map. Owned by the business, with vendors added as managers.
• Social accounts and ad accounts. Same rule.
• The CRM and anything else holding customer data. The business's customers belong to the business.
• The website assistant and any automation. Anything that answers or sends on your behalf should be registered to you as well.

How we set a client up

At the start of every engagement, we create or claim each of these in the client's name, using an email address at the client's own domain. Then we add ourselves as an administrator or manager, which gives us everything we need to do the work. We never make ourselves the owner. If a client already has accounts in a vendor's name, the first job is moving them, before anything gets built on top.

When the work is done, the client gets a written list of every account, who owns it, who has access, and where the renewals are billed. The domain renews on the owner's card. If we disappeared tomorrow, nothing would stop working and nothing would be out of reach.

The code for the site lives in a repository the client can be given access to. The site can be hosted somewhere else by someone else. That is not a threat to us. It is the point.

What to ask any vendor

If a vendor is already in the picture, or a new one is pitching, these questions settle it quickly:

1. Whose name is the domain registered in, and can I log in to the registrar right now?
2. Who is the owner on the analytics account, the Google Business Profile, and the ad accounts? Owner, not user.
3. If we part ways, what do I keep, and in what form?
4. Where is the website's code, and can I have a copy?
5. Which renewals are billed to you, and which to me?

A good vendor answers all of these without hesitation. A vendor who says it is simpler to keep things under their account is describing what is simpler for them.

Ownership is the first thing we set up and the last thing we hand over on every project, from a retirement advisor's website to a landscaper's CRM.

Questions people ask