Do you actually own your website? Four things to check.

Website ownership is not one thing. It is four separate things, and it is completely normal — not stupid, not careless — to own some of them and not others without ever knowing. Nobody tells you at signing. You usually find out the day you try to leave: the designer retires, the company stops answering, you get a bill you don't understand, or you just want someone new — and suddenly the site you paid for is a hostage.

This guide walks through the four parts and how to check each one today, in plain language. If you check all four and everything is in your name — great, you never needed us. If it isn't, you'll at least know exactly what to ask for.

1. The domain name (yourbusiness.ca)

What it is, plainly: the address itself — the thing people type in. It's rented from a company called a registrar for a small yearly fee. Whoever controls the registrar account controls the address: they can point it anywhere, renew it, let it expire, or refuse to hand it over. Your email often runs through it too — lose the domain and you can lose info@yourbusiness.ca with it.

How to check today: the renewal-email test — who gets the "your domain is up for renewal" emails every year, you or the person who built your site? The login test — can you, yourself, right now, log in to the registrar account? Not "my web person can" — you. And a free WHOIS lookup (for example lookup.icann.org): privacy services often hide the name, which is fine and normal — but the registrar shown tells you where the account lives, and if a name is shown and it's your designer's, you have your answer.

The failure mode: a builder registers the domain "to keep things simple" — under their account. Years later the relationship ends, or they quietly stop renewing it. Getting a domain back from someone else's account ranges from awkward to genuinely impossible, and some businesses have simply started over with a new address — losing years of Google history and every printed sign, card, and truck decal.

What good looks like: the domain is registered in your account, under your email, on your card — and your builder has been given access to work on it, access you can remove any time. Not the other way around.

2. The hosting account (where the site actually lives)

What it is, plainly: the domain is the address; hosting is the building. It's the account at the company whose computers actually serve your website to visitors. No hosting account, no website — even if you own the domain.

How to check: can you name your host? If you don't know whether your site lives at Vercel, Netlify, GoDaddy, Wix, Squarespace, or a "reseller plan" your designer runs — ask, in writing: "Which company hosts my site, and whose name is the account in?" A good builder answers in one sentence. Then the login test again: could you log in yourself if you had to? And the invoice test: who pays the hosting company — you directly, or your designer, who bills you? Paying through the designer isn't automatically bad, but it means the account is almost certainly theirs.

One caution on all-in-one builders: with some do-it-yourself platforms, the domain can be yours while the site itself can never leave the platform — there is nothing to export. That's a rental agreement, which is a fair deal only if you knew you were signing one.

What good looks like: the hosting account is in your name and email, your builder works inside it as an invited collaborator, and you could hand access to a new developer without asking anyone's permission.

3. Your content (words, photos, logo)

What it is, plainly: the text on the pages, your photos, your logo, your price list. Content you wrote and photos you took are generally yours by default — the practical problem is rarely legal. It's that your only copy lives inside the website, and if you lose the site, you lose the content with it.

How to check: do you have your own copies — on your computer, drive, or cloud — of your logo file, your photos, and the text on the site? If a designer made your logo: did you get the actual files, ideally the original design file, not just a small image pulled off the site?

What good looks like: boring and simple — a folder you control with your logo, your photos, and your text in it. Do this one today; it costs nothing and needs nobody's permission.

4. The design and source files (the site itself)

What it is, plainly: the actual working files of the website — the code, templates, and design. This is the part almost nobody checks, and it has a genuinely surprising default: in many cases, unless your agreement says otherwise in writing, the builder owns what they built. You paid for a website; without a written transfer, you may have bought something closer to permission to use one.

How to check: find whatever you signed — proposal, quote, email chain — and look for anything about who owns the "files," "code," "design," or "intellectual property" when the project is done. No mention at all is itself an answer: the default usually favours the builder. Or ask directly, in writing: "If we parted ways tomorrow, would you hand over everything a new developer needs to run this site exactly as it is — and is there any extra charge for that?" The tone and speed of the answer tells you as much as the content.

What good looks like: the agreement says plainly that the finished site — files, code, design — is yours, and there is a real copy in an account you control, so any competent developer could pick it up tomorrow without contacting the old one.

Questions to ask before you sign — any builder, including us

Copy these into an email to anyone you're thinking of hiring. Clear answers in plain language are the real credential.

1. Whose name will the domain be registered in — mine or yours?
2. Whose name is the hosting account in, and could I log in myself?
3. When it's done, do I own the site files and design — in writing?
4. If we parted ways, what exactly would you hand over, and would it cost extra?
5. Who receives the renewal emails for the domain and hosting?
6. Is there anything about this site that can't leave your company or your platform?

A builder who hesitates on any of these is telling you something. So is one who answers all six in two minutes.

The bottom line: ownership is four things, not one. You can check the first two today with a login test and a WHOIS lookup, fix the third with twenty minutes of downloading, and settle the fourth with one written question. None of it requires a confrontation — just clarity. And if you're starting fresh: insist on all four being in your name from day one. Any builder worth hiring will say yes without flinching.