Do You Know Where Your Website Actually Lives?
Last month we looked at fake domain renewal notices and how scammers count on business owners not knowing who really handles their domain. The best defense against a fake notice is simple: know exactly where your real domain is registered and when it renews.
Your website is built on a few accounts most owners rarely see: a domain name, a hosting account, and the logins behind them. Whoever controls those accounts controls your website. If that person is not you, your site is only as safe as your relationship with them.
The good news is that checking takes about 15 minutes, and you do not need to be technical to do it.
Two Stories From Our Own Clients
The website she could not touch. A business owner in Geneva came to us with a website she could not change. She did not own her domain name, she had no login to the site, and she did not know who did. Someone, somewhere, was paying the bill that kept it online. If that bill ever stopped getting paid, her website would disappear, and she would have no way to get it back.
The three-week hunt. Another client wanted to move their website to our hosting. The problem: nobody knew where it was hosted. It took three weeks to track down the hosting company and prove the client owned the site. Thankfully nothing broke in the meantime, because if it had, nobody could have fixed it.
These situations rarely start with a mistake. Someone set things up years ago, life moved on, and the details were never written down.
The 15-Minute Ownership Checklist
Work through these five factors in order. For each one, answer two questions: where does it live, and can I log in myself?
1. Your domain name (the most important one)
Your domain is your address on the internet, and it also controls your business email. Lose the domain and you lose both.
- Go to the free ICANN Lookup tool and type in your website address.
- Note the registrar (the company your domain is registered with) and the expiration date.
- Log in to that registrar account yourself. If you cannot, or you do not know the login, that is your first gap.
- Once you are in, confirm the account is in your name or your business name, the contact email is one you actually check, and auto-renew is turned on. While you are there, turn on two-step verification.
- Put the expiration date on your calendar. Any renewal notice that names a different company is the kind of scam we covered last month.
Do not worry if the lookup shows the owner’s name as “redacted for privacy.” That is normal and protects you from spam.
2. Your hosting account
Hosting is where your website’s files and database live. What you are looking for is a login to the hosting control panel, often called cPanel, which is where the website files, email accounts, and backups are managed. Some hosting companies use their own dashboard instead, but the idea is the same. If you pay the bill, find the latest invoice and confirm you can log in to that control panel. If someone else pays it, ask them for the hosting company’s name and whose name the account is under. If nobody is sure, the “name servers” in your ICANN lookup are a good clue, since they often point to the hosting company or the service managing your DNS.
Cheap or bundled hosting can make this murky, which is one of the reasons we wrote about the truth about cheap hosting.
3. Your DNS settings
DNS is the set of directions that sends visitors to your website and email to your inbox. It may live at your registrar, your host, or a service like Cloudflare. You do not need to understand the settings. You just need to know which company holds them and who can log in.
4. Your website administrator login
You should have your own administrator login to your website, in your name, with an email address you control. A shared login, or one that belongs to a former employee or developer, does not count. In WordPress, check under Users; most other platforms have a similar Users or Staff screen. If you are not listed as an administrator, ask for your own account.
5. Your Google accounts
You should hold the top-level role on your Google Business Profile (Owner), Google Search Console (Owner), and Google Analytics (Administrator). Your web or marketing vendor can be added with a lower role. Once ownership is sorted out, our 15-minute Google Business Profile audit is a good next step.
Write It All Down in One Place
Once you have checked each factor, create a simple one-page record. Keep it somewhere safe that someone you trust could find if you were unavailable. A free password manager such as Bitwarden works well, or a sealed note with your business records.
| What | Company | Login email | Renews |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain name | |||
| Hosting | |||
| DNS | |||
| Website admin | |||
| Google Business Profile | |||
| Google Analytics and Search Console |
This one page would have turned our three-week hunt into a five-minute phone call. Keep it next to your website backup details, since a backup only helps if you can get into the account to restore it.
What to Do If You Find a Gap
If your current web person controls an account: ask them, politely and in writing, to add you as the owner or give you your own login. This is a normal request, and any good vendor will handle it without fuss. Your vendor can still do the work. You just hold the keys.
If you cannot reach whoever set it up: start with the domain, since it matters most. Contact the registrar’s support team, explain that you are the business owner, and ask what they need to verify ownership. Expect to provide business documents, and expect it to take time, which is why it is far better to do this while nothing is broken.
If you need to move something: the checklist is entirely do-it-yourself, but transferring a domain or moving hosting is where one DNS mistake can take your website or email offline. That is a good point to bring in someone you trust for an hour of help.
A word of honesty from our side: even when you work with a website development company like ours, these accounts should be in your name. You should stay with a vendor because they do good work, not because they are holding you hostage.
Fifteen Minutes Now Saves Weeks Later
You may find everything is already in your name. If so, great: write it down and put the renewal dates on your calendar. If you find a gap, you found it on a quiet day instead of the day your website went dark.
With Wheaton Website Services, we can help you review who controls your domain, hosting, and website accounts so everything is secure and in your name. Are you ready to take full control of your website? Contact us today to learn how we can help.
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