How to get access to your own website

One. The registrar. Where you rent your web address. Whoever holds this can point your address anywhere in the world, or let it expire. This is the one that matters most, because it is the only one you cannot rebuild from scratch.

Two. The host. The computer your site sits on. Whoever holds this can switch your site off.

Three. The website itself. The pages, the words, the pictures. Whoever holds this can change what your business says.

Four. The email. Often forgotten and often the trap. If your business email runs on the same address as your website, whoever controls the registrar controls your email too. That includes every password reset link for everything else you own.

Four locks. Four keys. They are usually not on the same keyring.

Do these in order. You need nobody's help and nobody will know you did it.

Test the registrar. Search for "ICANN lookup", use ICANN's own tool, and put in your web address. Note the registrar name. Go to that company's site and use forgot password with your own email address. A reset email means the account is yours. Silence means it is not.

Test the host. Find the recurring charge on your card or in your email. Whoever you are paying, go to their site and use forgot password the same way. No charge anywhere means somebody else is paying, and somebody else is in control.

Test the website. WordPress sites are usually your address plus /wp-admin. Wix, Squarespace and Shopify have their own login pages. Get in if you can, then look for a Users, Team or Members screen. Find your own name and read what it says next to it.

Test the email. If your business email ends in your own domain, try logging in to it directly rather than through an app that already remembers the password. If you cannot, you do not really hold it.

This is the part most people miss, and it is the difference between having access and having control.

Most website systems have levels. The names vary, but the shape is always the same: Owner or Administrator at the top, then Editor, then Contributor or Author.

An Editor can change the words on your pages. That feels like access, so people stop there.

An Editor cannot remove anybody else. They cannot transfer the site. They usually cannot change the billing. If the relationship goes wrong, an Editor can be removed by the Owner, and the Owner cannot be removed by an Editor.

So when you get into your own website, do not stop at "I can log in". Find the users screen and check what your account actually is. If it does not say Owner or Administrator, ask for that, and ask in writing.

This happens, and there is a word owners reach for without being taught it. They say the site is being held hostage. It turns up on support forums across completely unrelated platforms, in the same words, year after year.

One thread was titled, by the owner, "Paid designer their Holding my site hostage. [SOS!]". Inside it:

"They will not give access or transfer website to us. They said it cannot be transferred due to technology theft."

And, in the same thread:

"The registered the domain under their own identity."

Both of those are worth understanding, because one of them is nonsense and the other is the real problem.

"It cannot be transferred" is almost never true. Sites built on ordinary tools move between accounts all the time. It is a settings change, not surgery.

The domain being registered in their name is the real problem, and it is the one to deal with first.

What to do, in order:

1. 1.Ask plainly and in writing. Email, not a phone call, because you want a record. Ask for the domain to be moved to an account in your name, and for Owner access to the website. Give a date.
2. 2.Do not accuse anyone. Most of the time this is not malice, it is a person who set things up quickly and has now got busy.
3. 3.Check what you actually agreed. Look at the original quote or contract. Many say nothing at all about ownership, which is unhelpful but also means nothing says they own it.
4. 4.Work out what you would lose. The website can be rebuilt. The domain cannot. If you hold the domain, you have a bad few weeks. If you do not, you may need help.
5. 5.If they stop replying, stop waiting. A person who has not answered in two weeks is not about to. Get advice about the domain specifically. Everything else can be rebuilt.

One thing worth knowing so you are not caught out. Once the ownership details on a domain are changed, there is a 60 day lock before it can be moved to a different company. That is an ICANN rule and nobody can waive it. So a handover takes about two months from start to finish. If it feels like you are being stalled, you may just be waiting for a rule.

Copy these into an email. You do not need a lawyer and you do not need to explain yourself.

1. 1.The domain is registered in my name, in an account I can log into, with renewal billed to my card.
2. 2.I get Owner or Administrator access to the website on the day it goes live. Not Editor.
3. 3.Hosting is in my name with the bill on my card, or, if you are hosting it for me, tell me plainly what happens to my site if we stop working together.
4. 4.My business email stays under my control, separately from whoever builds the site.
5. 5.On the last day, I get a list of every account, what it is for, and how to log in.

Anyone decent says yes to all five without blinking, because that is how they already work. The reaction to that email tells you a lot before you spend a dollar.

Do the registrar test. It takes five minutes and it is the only one of the four you cannot recover from.

Then set a calendar reminder, two weeks before your domain expires, every year. That one reminder prevents the worst thing on this page.