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Who owns my website?

Last reviewed
2026-09-16

Four things are owned separately: the domain name, the content, the design and code, and the data. Your contract decides the middle two, and in the absence of a written assignment the person who wrote the code often retains copyright in it, even after you paid for it.

The longer version

The domain is whoever is listed as registrant at the registrar. This is the one to check first and the one that causes the most trouble when it is wrong.

Content you supplied is generally yours. Design and code created by a contractor is generally theirs unless the contract assigns it to you in writing, which is a common and unpleasant surprise at the end of a relationship.

Data collected through the site, such as form submissions, is yours as a business matter, but you may need cooperation to extract it if it sits in somebody else’s account.

What to do

  1. Check the registrant on the domain and correct it if it is not the business.
  2. Read the contract for an assignment of intellectual property. If there is not one, ask for one.
  3. Make sure hosting and analytics accounts are in the business name with your billing on them.
  4. Take a copy of your data on a schedule, so a dispute never costs you the records.