Ten minutes on your existing site. Most owners discover the answer at renewal or when a developer stops replying — which are the two most expensive moments to find out.
Run it now, while nothing is wrong. The same requests get answered on a quiet Tuesday and ignored during a dispute, because the access is the leverage.
The five checks
☐ 1. The domain — can you log in and reset the password yourself?
Search “whois” plus your domain. Read the registrant email.
- Your email → ✅ log in now, turn on auto-renew, check the saved card, calendar the expiry
- Their email → ❌ this is the most important thing on the page to fix
- Masked by privacy → search your inbox for a registrar welcome email and try a password reset. This resolves more cases than people expect
Why first: the domain is the one thing that can’t be recreated. Miss the renewal and your website and business email stop together.
☐ 2. Hosting — do you have a login you’ve actually used?
Not “you’ve forgotten it” — were you ever given one?
- Yes → ✅ note the hosting expiry date; it’s separate from the domain, with its own outage
- No, and you pay the developer for hosting → ❌ your site sits inside their reseller account. Their lapse becomes your outage
☐ 3. Site admin — can you change a price yourself?
Try it. Log in, change one word on a page, save it.
- Yes → ✅ you can maintain your own content
- No → ❌ every small edit costs you money and waiting. Recoverable through hosting, without the developer
☐ 4. Backup — do you hold a copy off the server?
Not “the host takes backups” — do you have a file?
- Yes, downloaded and stored somewhere else → ✅
- Only inside the hosting account → ⚠️ worthless if the account is lost or suspended
- No idea → ❌ ask for a full backup as a zip today; it’s a routine request
Why: with a backup and your domain, almost any developer can restore you quickly. Without either you’re rebuilding — and a compromised-site cleanup in India typically runs ₹20,000–50,000 or more.
☐ 5. Everything else registered on your behalf
The question almost nobody asks:
Please confirm whether anything — Google Business Profile, analytics, business email, payment gateway, social accounts — is registered under your account for my business.
- Nothing, or all under your own email → ✅
- Some under theirs → ❌ this is where hidden dependencies live
One buyer discovered their site had been registered against a developer’s personal email only when a payment gateway withheld transactions because the verification details didn’t match. The site existed; money couldn’t move through it.
Score it
| Result | What it means | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| 5 ✅ | You genuinely own your website. Set the two renewal reminders and move on | Low |
| 4 ✅ | One gap. Close it this week | Medium |
| Check 1 = ❌ | You don’t practically own your business name | Do this first, today |
| Checks 1 and 2 = ❌ | You cannot move without cooperation. Recoverable, but start now | Urgent |
| 2 or fewer ✅ | A hostage situation you haven’t been told about yet | Urgent |
Fixing each gap
Domain in their account → request the transfer framed as routine records-keeping, not as a departure. If they don’t cooperate, registrars have ownership-claim processes and will weigh GST registration, invoices and payment records.
No hosting access → contact the hosting company directly as the account owner. Where the plan sits in the developer’s reseller account, ask the host what recovery requires.
No admin login → follows from hosting access. You don’t need the developer for this.
No backup → once you have hosting, the control panel generates one. Download it and store it off the server.
Things registered under their account → each platform has its own ownership-recovery process. Start with whichever one carries money: the payment gateway.
Note that checks 2, 3 and 4 collapse into one. Hosting access delivers the backup and the admin login. So there are really only two objectives: the domain, and hosting.
The message to send today
One message, no grievance, specific items, and a reason for them to reply:
Hi [name]. For my records, could you please send the domain registrar login, the hosting login, the website admin login, and a full backup of the site as a zip? Also, please confirm whether anything — Google Business Profile, analytics, business email, payment gateway — is registered under your account for my business. Happy to settle any pending amount on receipt.
If there’s a genuine unpaid balance, pay it. A few thousand rupees to end a dependency is the cheapest option on the table.
Once you’ve closed the gaps
Four things, about twenty minutes, and this audit never fails again:
☐ Domain in your own registrar account, your email, auto-renew on, card current
☐ Hosting in your own name, with its own expiry date noted
☐ Both expiry dates in your calendar with 30-day reminders
☐ A backup you hold, off the server — refresh it after any significant change
And going forward: give developers access, not ownership. Registrars and hosts both support adding a user or sharing DNS without handing over the account. Most buyers don’t know this exists, which is how domains end up in vendor accounts by default.
What to do this week
- Run the WHOIS lookup and read the registrant email.
- Try logging in to hosting and to your site admin.
- Download a backup and store it off the server.
- Send the records-keeping message today, not during a dispute.
- Put both renewal dates in your calendar with auto-renew on.
If you want it done the certain way
Send us your domain name and tell us what access you hold — we’ll tell you which of the five you’d fail and what closing each gap involves, including when it’s simpler than you expect. Where we take over, everything sits in your accounts and we take access rather than ownership. WhatsApp us; we reply in about five minutes between 9am and 7pm.
Related reading
- Is your domain really yours? Check in 30 seconds
- Who really owns a domain?
- The day you discover your website was never yours
- Website handover checklist: the keys you must get
- Website rescue: recover your domain, hosting and site
FAQ
How do I check if I own my website?
Five checks: can you log in to the domain registrar and reset the password via your own email, do you have a hosting login, can you edit your own content, do you hold a backup off the server, and is anything registered under your developer’s account for you.
What should I do if my developer holds my domain?
Request the transfer now, framed as routine records-keeping rather than as a departure. If they don’t cooperate, registrars have ownership-claim processes that weigh GST registration, invoices and payment records.
Is a backup inside my hosting account good enough?
No. If the account is lost, suspended or controlled by someone else, so is the backup. Download it and keep your own copy somewhere separate.
What’s the one question most owners never ask?
Whether anything — Google Business Profile, analytics, business email, payment gateway — is registered under the developer’s account on their behalf. That’s where hidden dependencies sit and it usually surfaces at the worst possible time.
