Who owns your website and domain in NZ?

Why this goes wrong so often

Most small businesses don't lose control of their website on purpose. A designer sets things up quickly under their own account to save time. A staff member registers the domain with their personal email. A builder subscription is on a card that expires. Years later, the business wants to change something and finds it can't log in to anything.

None of this needs a lawyer to prevent. It needs a list of what you should own, checked once before the build and once at handover. Here's the list.

1. The domain name

The domain is your address — yourbusiness.co.nz — and it's the most important thing to own. The person or company listed as the registrant is the legal holder of a .nz domain. That should be you or your company, not your designer and not a former employee.

To check, log in to the registrar you pay for the domain. If you don't know who that is, look for the renewal email, or ask whoever set up your site. The account should be in your name, use an email address you control, and have auto-renew on. If someone else holds it, ask them to change the registrant to you now, while you're on good terms.

Moving a .nz domain to a different registrar uses a code called a UDAI, which the current registrar issues to the registrant. If the registrant is you, you can move whenever you like. If the registrant is someone else, they have to cooperate. That's the whole reason to get this right on day one.

2. The hosting account

Hosting is where the site files live. The account should be in your name, billed to your card, with your email as the login. Your designer can be added as a user to do the work. They shouldn't be the only person who can get in.

This matters most when the relationship ends. If the hosting is in the designer's account, they can take the site offline, or simply stop paying for it, and there's nothing you can do quickly. If it's in yours, you can hand access to someone new in five minutes.

3. The website itself

Who owns the design and the code depends on what you agreed. Get it in writing: the quote or contract should say that the site, and the logo if one is included, belong to you once you've paid. If it says nothing, ask. A designer who won't put ownership in writing is telling you something.

On a website builder, you own your words and photos but not a working copy of the design. You can export some content; you can't move the site to another host as it is. That's not a trick, it's how builders work — you're renting the platform. On a custom site, you should get the files at handover, in a form another developer could pick up.

Check the photos too. Stock photos are licensed, often to whoever bought the licence. Photos your designer took may need a written OK to use. Photos you took yourself are yours. A site full of images you don't have the right to use is a small risk until it isn't.

4. Your Google Business Profile

A Business Profile has owners and managers. The owner has full control, including adding and removing other people. You should be the primary owner. A designer or marketing agency can be a manager, which lets them edit without being able to lock you out.

Open the profile settings and check who's listed. If you only see yourself as a manager, ask whoever is the owner to transfer ownership to you. If you can't reach them, Google has a request-access process, but it's slower than asking. The Business Profile setup guide covers the rest of the profile.

5. Search Console and analytics

Google Search Console shows which searches bring people to your site. Google Analytics shows what they do once they arrive. Both are free, and both hold history you can't get back if you lose access. You should be an owner or administrator on both, with your designer added as a user if they need it.

The same applies to a Google Ads account if you run ads: the account and the billing should be yours, with anyone helping you added as a user. Ad history and conversion tracking are worth keeping when you change who manages them.

Questions to ask before you hire anyone

Ask these in writing, and keep the answers. Who will be the registrant on the domain? Whose name will the hosting account be in? What happens to the site if I stop paying you? Will I get the website files at handover, and in what form? Do I own the logo and the design once I've paid? Will I be the owner on the Google Business Profile, Search Console, and analytics?

A good answer to all six is “you”. An answer like “we look after all that for you” is fine as a service, but it isn't ownership. Ask what happens if you leave. If the answer is a fee to release the domain or the files, factor that into the price.

A ten-minute ownership check

You can check most of this today without calling anyone. Open a note on your phone and work down the list. For the domain, find the renewal email or log in to the registrar, and check that the registrant name is you or your company and the contact email is one you read. For hosting, log in and check that the account email is yours. If you can't log in, write down who can.

For the website, find the last quote or invoice from whoever built it and look for a line about ownership or handover. If there's no line, email them and ask for the files, and keep the reply. For the Google Business Profile, open the profile settings and check that you're listed as an owner. For Search Console and analytics, log in with your business Google account and see whether the site appears.

Anything you can't tick is a job for this month, while the people involved are still easy to reach. It's much easier to ask a designer to change a registrant while you're working together than three years later when their business has closed. Most of these fixes take a few minutes once the right person is asked.

If you've already lost access

Start with the domain, because everything else can be rebuilt. Find out who the registrar is and who's listed as the registrant. If it's a former designer, contact them politely and ask for the registrant to be changed to you. Most will help. If they won't or can't be found, contact the registrar and, for .nz domains, the Domain Name Commission, which oversees .nz and has a process for registrant disputes.

For the site itself, if you can't get the files, it's often quicker to rebuild than to fight for them. Copy the text from the live site while it's still up, save your photos, and write down the addresses of the pages that matter. When the new site goes live, those old addresses should redirect to the new pages so you keep your search traffic.

For the Google Business Profile, use Google's request-access process, and keep proof that you're the business: invoices, a business email address on your domain, your NZBN. Search Console is easier once you control the domain: you can verify yourself as an owner through the domain's settings. Analytics history in an account you can't reach is usually lost, so set up a new property in your own account and start again.

How we hand over

Starter at $499 and Growth at $1,199 both end with you holding everything. The domain stays registered in your name. The hosting account is yours, and we tell you what to set up. You receive the site files and the logo files. On Growth, the Google Business Profile is set up in your Google account with you as owner. There's no monthly fee to us, so nothing switches off if you never speak to us again.

If a host account ends up in our name during a build, that's a mistake we fix before the final payment, not a favour. The package guide lists what each tier includes, and the running costs guide covers what you'll pay the providers directly.