What happens to my website if my web designer disappears?

If your web designer stopped answering tomorrow, you would keep whatever is registered in your name, and lose whatever is not. Most small business owners have never checked which is which. It takes about ten minutes, and the time to do it is now, while everyone is still answering the phone.

This is not a warning about bad designers. Good ones get ill, retire, move abroad or simply stop trading. The problem only exists because nobody wrote down who holds what.

The four things that matter

1. The domain name. Your web address. It is registered through a company called a registrar, and whoever holds the registrar login controls it, including your email if your email runs on that domain. This is the one to check first.

2. The hosting. The account where the website actually lives. If it is in the designer's account and they stop paying, the site goes offline.

3. The site files. The website itself. On some platforms you can download a copy; on others the site only exists inside the designer's account and cannot be moved.

4. The Google Business Profile. Often brings more customers than the website. It should be owned by your Google account, with the designer added as a manager.

The ten minute check

1. Look up your domain on any WHOIS or domain lookup service. Note the registrar it names. Do you have a login there? If not, that is your first job.
2. Find your hosting. Ask your designer where the site is hosted and whose account it is in. Write the answer down.
3. Open your Google Business Profile. In the settings, look at who has access. You want to see yourself as the primary owner.
4. Ask for a copy of the site. Not to use, just to have. A good designer will not mind, and the answer tells you whether it can be moved at all.
5. Keep the logins somewhere safe that is not only in your designer's head: a password manager, or a sealed note with your important papers.

Warning signs

• The domain renewal invoice comes from your designer, not from a registrar.
• You have never had a login to anything.
• Your contract says the design remains the designer's property until a final payment, or says nothing about ownership at all.
• The Google listing was set up with the designer's email address.

None of these mean anyone is acting in bad faith. Registering things in their own account is often just how a designer finds it easiest to work. It still leaves you exposed.

What to ask for, politely, this week

• The domain moved into an account in your name, or you added as the owner.
• Your own login to the hosting, or written confirmation of whose account it is in.
• Primary ownership of your Google Business Profile, with the designer as manager.
• A copy of the site files, and a note of anything that could not be copied.

How we handle it

Since we sell websites, here is our own answer to this question. Everything we set up for a client is registered in the client's name from day one: the domain, the website, the Google listing and the social accounts. We work through manager access, never by holding the master login. If a client leaves, we hand over every login and help move the site. It is written into our terms, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Comparing providers? The ownership question decides more than the price does, and we cover it in our comparison of care plans, Wix, agencies and lead sites.

Questions about this study