Ownership of a website is not a single thing you either have or do not have. It splits into 5 separate assets, and they can sit in 5 different names without anybody having lied to you: the domain licence, the hosting account, the code and files, the content and photography, and the Google properties that hold your history. Checking all of them costs nothing and takes about 10 minutes. The time to do it is before you sign, not on the day a relationship ends badly.
Start with the domain, because it is the asset you cannot rebuild
Everything else can be recreated: a new site, new copy, new photos, a fresh analytics property. The domain is different. It is the address customers type, the address on the van and the invoices, and the address every link pointing at your business resolves to. Losing it forfeits every year of value built under it.
For a .com.au or .net.au name, look it up through the auDA WHOIS at whois.auda.org.au. For a .com, use lookup.icann.org. The field that settles the question is the registrant. Contact emails are redacted on .au lookups, but the registrant name and the registrant ID (normally an ABN or ACN) are public, and those 2 fields are the licence.
You want to see your own trading entity, spelled as it appears on your ABN registration. What should stop you is a registrant name belonging to a marketing agency, a web design business, or an individual who is not you. The .au licensing rules require the holder to have an Australian presence and a connection to the name, so a domain sitting under somebody else’s ABN is a licence in their name rather than a paperwork quirk that gets tidied up later.
The 10-minute check, in order
Work down this list in a single sitting. Every row is something you can verify yourself, using accounts and public lookups you already have.
| What to check | Where to look | What a good answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Domain licence | whois.auda.org.au, or lookup.icann.org for .com | Your entity name and your ABN in the registrant field |
| Registrar account | The registrar’s own website | An account in your email, with your card billed for renewals |
| Hosting | The host’s control panel or platform account | A login in your business name that you can reset unaided |
| Code and files | Ask for a current export, in writing | Site files plus a database export, or repository access |
| Content and images | Your written agreement | A copyright assignment, plus your own stock licence receipts |
| Google Business Profile | business.google.com, then Users | Your email listed as Primary owner |
| Google Analytics | Admin, then Property Access Management | Administrator, inside an account your business owns |
| Search Console | Settings, then Users and permissions | Owner, on a property verified by a DNS record |
What “we host it for you” usually means
It normally means 1 of 3 arrangements. The site sits inside a reseller plan the provider bought wholesale, or on a server they control directly, or inside their own account on a platform such as Wix, Squarespace, Vercel or Shopify. All 3 are ordinary, cheaper to run and easier to support, which is why small providers use them.
The consequence goes unsaid: no billing relationship with the company actually holding your files, no credential you can reset yourself, and no way to move without cooperation. If the provider goes quiet, stops trading or simply disagrees with you, there is nothing you can do alone.
The test is a single sentence in an email: please create the hosting account in my business name, send me the login, and confirm the renewal is billed to my card. A provider running an honest setup does it without needing a reason. If the reply is that it lives on their server and they take care of it, you are a tenant rather than an owner.
The code and the files: ask for the export, not the reassurance
“You own your website” is not a testable statement. “Please send me a copy” is. What should come back depends on how the site was built.
- WordPress. A zip of the wp-content directory plus a database export. Those 2 files together restore a working site anywhere. Anything less is a screenshot.
- A custom build. Access to the code repository under your own account, or a complete copy of the source. Repository access is better, because it carries the history with it.
- A drag-and-drop platform. There is nothing meaningful to export. Squarespace produces an XML file of pages and posts, Wix hands over blog posts and contacts as CSV, and neither reproduces the site. The design does not leave the platform. That is a constraint of the choice rather than a failure by whoever built it, but assuming you are portable when you are not is how people rebuild twice.
If the export request produces a fee nobody mentioned, write the number down. Charging for migration is legitimate when it is documented in advance. Discovering it at the exit is the oldest leverage in this industry.
Content and photography, where copyright quietly bites
We are not lawyers and none of this is legal advice, so anything material belongs with your own solicitor. The general position under Australian copyright law does surprise people: copyright begins with whoever created the work, and an assignment must be in writing to take effect. Paying the invoice buys the deliverable, not the rights in it.
The practical version. Copy written for you is yours only if the agreement says so. Photography commissioned for commercial use normally stays with the photographer and reaches you as a licence for defined uses. Stock images belong to whoever bought the licence, so if they were purchased under a provider’s account the licence may not travel with the site, and the new build quietly inherits the exposure.
Ask for 4 things: the original photography as full-resolution files, the logo in vector format rather than a PNG lifted off the site, the stock licence receipts, and a written line confirming what you may do with each. All of it is worth asking before you hire anyone.
The Google properties, worth the most and checked the least
For a local business the Business Profile is frequently worth more than the website, because the reviews live on the profile and reviews do not move. Open business.google.com, select the business, and look at Users. The roles are Primary owner, Owner and Manager. A Manager can post and edit. Only an owner can add and remove people, and only the primary owner can transfer the profile. Being a Manager on your own business is not ownership.
Analytics is the one people discover too late. Administrator access on a property is not the whole story, because properties live inside accounts, and if the account belongs to a provider your access can be withdrawn from above. Moving a property to another account only works between accounts in the same organisation, so the realistic outcome in a fallout is a new property and a blank history.
Search Console settles faster. Under Settings, then Users and permissions, you want Owner rather than Full user, and check how the property was verified. A domain property verified by a DNS TXT record answers to whoever controls the DNS, which should be you. Verification borrowed from someone else’s tag manager can be revoked by them, which is why it appears in the checklist for redesigning a site without losing rankings.
The clause to ask for, in writing
Send this to anyone quoting on your site and ask for it to go into the agreement. The exact wording matters less than having it written down, but this version covers all 5 assets in a single paragraph.
The Client is recorded as the registrant of the domain name from the date of registration. All hosting, analytics, Search Console and Google Business Profile accounts used for the Client’s website are created in the Client’s name, with the Client holding the highest available permission level on each. Copyright in the website code, design files, page content and commissioned photography is assigned to the Client on payment. On termination for any reason, the Supplier will within 10 business days provide a complete export of the website files and database, transfer the domain licence to a registrar account nominated by the Client, and remove its own access, at no additional charge.
Each phrase in there is load-bearing:
- From the date of registration closes the gap where a domain is held on your behalf and transferred later, the arrangement behind almost every dispute.
- Highest available permission level beats “access”, because access can honestly mean Manager, and Manager is not control.
- Assigned on payment is the written assignment copyright law asks for.
- Within 10 business days makes the obligation measurable. An undated promise is not enforceable in any useful sense.
- At no additional charge removes the lever most likely to be pulled at the moment you have least leverage.
A provider who will not put this in writing has told you something useful.
What to do when the check comes back wrong
- Ask per asset, in writing, in plain language. Put it in an email rather than a conversation, because you want a record of the request and the reply.
- Give the request a date. “Please confirm by Friday” converts a vague ask into a documented one, and it changes how the reply is written.
- Take everything freely offered immediately: exports, logins, image files, licence receipts. Never let a disputed item hold up the assets nobody is arguing about.
- For the domain, request the registrant transfer and the domain password, and move the licence into a registrar account in your own name. If that stalls, the registrar, auDA for .au names and ICANN for .com all have dispute processes.
- Rebuild rather than stall. If a fight over files is holding up a site that was not producing enquiries anyway, a fresh build on a domain you control is usually the cheaper road.
- Do not withhold an invoice as leverage before the assets are secured. It reliably accelerates the lockout instead of preventing it.
How this offer handles it
We will say this once and then leave you to verify it. Our agreement is published in full on this site, ownership clause included. The client is the domain registrant from day 1. Hosting, analytics, Search Console and the Business Profile are created in the client’s name at the highest permission level. Code and content are assigned to the client. On cancellation the files and the domain transfer across with migration support included, and there is no release fee.
The build costs $0 upfront, the site is live in 5 working days from intake, and it is $297 a month including GST on a 12-month subscription, which is $3,564 across the year. No leads from SEO in your first 90 days and you stop paying until one arrives. You can see exactly what gets handed over before committing to any of it.