Who Owns My Website? How to Check the 5 Layers and Take Control

The short answer

"Who owns my website" has five answers, not one: whoever is the registrant of the domain, whoever holds the hosting account, whoever holds copyright in the code and design (the designer, unless a signed contract transfers it), whoever wrote or licensed the content and images, and whoever is a verified owner of the Google, analytics and platform accounts around it. Many small businesses own the first and none of the others; all five can be checked in under an hour, and most gaps close quietly if you close them before you need to.

Who owns my website? The five layers to check

A website is a stack, and each layer can belong to someone different: the domain in a designer's account, the files with a host, the design copyright with a freelancer who left, the Google accounts verified by a former contractor. Everything works until one of those people stops answering.

Layer	Who owns it by default	How to check in five minutes
Domain name	The named registrant at the registrar	Log in to the registrar; if you cannot, ask who can and whose name the registration shows
Hosting	The account holder who pays the host	Find the invoice; whose name and card are on it?
Code and design	The person or company that created it, unless assigned in writing	Read your contract for the words "assign" or "intellectual property"
Content and images	Whoever wrote or shot it; stock is licensed, not owned	Who wrote the copy? Where did the photos come from, and is there a licence?
Accounts	The verified owners of Search Console, Analytics, Business Profile, the CMS admin	Open each; are you an owner, a user, or not there?

Layers 1 and 2: the domain and the hosting

The domain is the layer that matters most

Lose the files and you can rebuild. Lose the domain and you lose your address, your email and every link ever pointed at you. The domain belongs to the registrant named at the registrar, and the practical test is whether you can log in and change the name servers yourself.

ICANN's Transfer Policy, which binds all accredited registrars for generic domains such as .com, states that "Registered Name Holders must be able to transfer their domain name registrations between Registrars" and limits the reasons a registrar may refuse. Two timing rules matter: a transfer "requested within 60 days of the creation date" can be denied, and a registrar "must impose a 60-day inter-registrar transfer lock following a Change of Registrant" unless the holder opted out in advance (ICANN). In plain terms: if you need to put your business's name on the registration and then move registrars, allow two months, and do it long before any launch or dispute.

Hosting is a rental, so check whose lease it is

Nobody owns hosting; you rent space. If the agency pays the host and bills you a package, the files sit in their account and leaving means asking for a copy. That is fine with a good agency and a written exit clause, and a hostage situation with a bad one. The cleanest structure is hosting in your account with the agency given access, so you can revoke access instead of requesting a favour. Our note on website maintenance costs in Canada explains what a fair hosting and care arrangement looks like.

Layers 3 and 4: the code, the design and the content

Paying for a website does not make you its copyright owner

Canada's Copyright Act is direct: "the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein", and while an owner "may assign the right, either wholly or partially", "no assignment or grant is valid unless it is in writing signed by the owner of the right" (Copyright Act, s. 13). The exception for employees applies to work created by staff, not to a freelancer or agency you hired. So unless your contract contains a signed assignment of the design and code to you, the designer still owns them, and you hold at best an implied licence to use them. That rarely stops you running the site; it can stop you moving it or modifying it with another developer. This is general information, not legal advice.

Check your contract for an assignment clause; if there is none, ask for one now, while the relationship is good. For future projects, make ownership a line in the brief and the contract. It is one of the questions in our fifteen questions to ask a web designer, and it is a written promise on every Flowmatix project.

Open-source platforms change the picture, hosted builders change it back

If your site runs on WordPress, the platform itself is released under the GPL and its makers state that "derivatives of WordPress code inherit the GPL license" (WordPress.org). You can take a WordPress site to any host and any developer; only a custom theme the designer did not assign, or subscription plugins, might be restricted.

Hosted builders work differently. Squarespace's own documentation explains that you can export "an .xml file of your site content, then import it to WordPress", but that store pages, style settings, custom CSS and several block types do not export because "many features rely on our platform's JavaScript and CSS" (Squarespace Help Center). On a hosted builder you own your content and your domain, and you rent the site. If portability matters to you, know that before you choose the platform, not when you want to leave.

Content and images follow the same rule

Copy you wrote is yours; copy the agency wrote is theirs until assigned. Stock photography is licensed to the account that bought it, which may be the agency's. A photographer's images belong to the photographer unless assigned, so a shoot quote should say what rights you get. Keep a folder with the licence or assignment for every image on the site.

Layer 5: the accounts around the site

This is the layer most owners never check. Google's Search Console documentation says that "a verified owner has the highest degree of permissions" and warns that "if all verified owners lose access to a property, all users will lose access to the Search Console property" (Google). Being added as a user is not ownership. The same logic applies to Google Analytics (admin, not viewer), Google Business Profile (primary owner), Tag Manager, the CMS admin account, the email provider and any booking, CRM or payment tool connected to the site.

Open each one and look at your role. If a former contractor is the only owner, verify yourself now, while you can still place a verification file or DNS record, then remove previous owners' tokens, in that order.

How to take control, step by step

1. Domain first. Confirm your business is the registrant and you hold the login. If a designer holds it, request a change of registrant and plan for the 60-day lock. Set auto-renew on your card.
2. Verify yourself on every Google property as an owner, then remove people who have left. Repeat for Analytics, Tag Manager and Business Profile.
3. Get a full copy of the site: a complete backup for WordPress, the export file plus every full-size image for a hosted builder, the source repository for a custom build. Store it somewhere you control.
4. Read the contract and request an assignment of code, design and content if it is missing. Ask for it in writing, signed; that is what the Copyright Act requires.
5. Move hosting into your name at the next renewal, and give the agency delegated access rather than the other way round.
6. Write down where everything lives, who has access and what each costs, and give a copy to a second person.
7. Put ownership terms in every future brief. Every layer in your name, with a written exit listing what you receive and how fast.

Good studios expect these questions and have the clauses ready. If yours resists, that is one of the signs you may need a new website on terms you control. Whether you keep the current site or rebuild, a maintenance arrangement should keep the site online, secure and yours, in that order; our website redesign page sets out how we handle the hand-over of each layer when a client moves to us.

Key takeaways

• Ownership is five layers: domain, hosting, code and design, content and images, and accounts. Check each separately.
• In Canada, copyright in a commissioned website stays with the designer unless assigned in signed writing; payment alone transfers nothing.
• Your business should be the domain registrant and a verified owner, not a user, of Search Console, Analytics and Business Profile.
• Hosted builders let you export content, not the working site; know that before you choose one.
• Close the gaps while relationships are good, and allow 60 days for domain changes before any deadline.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find out who owns my domain name?

Log in to the registrar and read the registrant details. If you cannot log in, ask whoever set up the site which account it lives in; the registrant shown there is the holder. If it is not your business, request a change of registrant and plan for a 60-day transfer lock afterwards.

Can my web designer hold my website hostage?

They can make leaving difficult if they hold the domain, the hosting and the only copies of the files, and the contract never assigned the design to you. The remedy: domain and hosting in your name, a full backup, and a written assignment, all arranged before there is a dispute.

If I paid for my website, do I own the copyright?

Not automatically in Canada. The creator is the first owner, and the Copyright Act requires an assignment to be in writing and signed. Check your contract for an assignment or intellectual property clause; if there is none, ask the designer to sign a short assignment of the finished work. This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Transfer Policy — ICANN, effective December 1, 2016 (updated February 2024)
2. Copyright Act, section 13 (Ownership of copyright) — Justice Laws Website, Government of Canada, current to September 30, 2026
3. GNU Public License — WordPress.org
4. Exporting your site — Squarespace Help Center
5. Verify your site ownership — Google Search Console Help

How Flowmatix can help

We put this into practice for businesses in Toronto and around the world through our Website Redesign, website care & maintenance services. Want to know what it would take for your business? Get a personalised quote in about 3 minutes.