The most expensive problem I get called about is not a slow site or a bad design. It is a business that wants to move, and discovers it cannot, because the agency that built the site registered the domain in its own name.
A launch is not finished when the site goes live. It is finished when you hold every key. Here is exactly what to ask for, and what each item is for.
The seven things you must hold
- 1The domain registrar login: the account where the domain itself is registered, with your business as the registrant. This is the single most important item on the list.
- 2DNS control, which is often the registrar, sometimes a separate provider. Without it you cannot point the domain anywhere else.
- 3Hosting account access: where the files sit, plus billing ownership so the site cannot lapse without your knowledge.
- 4The source code: a copy of the site, or access to the repository it lives in. Not a ZIP of the theme; the actual build.
- 5Google Analytics property, owned by your Google account with the agency added as a user, never the reverse.
- 6Google Search Console property, verified against your domain, so ranking and indexing data stays with you.
- 7Google Business Profile ownership, with the agency as a manager rather than the primary owner.
The test that settles it
There is one question that reveals the truth faster than any contract review: if you stopped working with your current provider tomorrow, could you move the site somewhere else without asking their permission? If the answer is no, something on the list above is in the wrong hands.
Ownership is not a paperwork detail. It is the difference between a supplier and a hostage situation.
What a clean handover looks like
Every build this studio ships ends with a handover document: each account, who owns it, how to log in, and what it does. Analytics and Search Console are created under the client’s own Google account from day one, so there is nothing to transfer later. It costs nothing to do it this way, and it removes the single biggest risk a small business takes on when it commissions a website.
If you already have a site and cannot answer the seven questions above, that is worth resolving before you spend another rupee on marketing that points at it.
