Today is not the first time I’ve brought up the question of website ownership in a blog. I include “who owns the website” as the most surprising question you, as a business owner, need to ask before paying for website services in my July 2023 blog, 7 Essential Questions to Ask Before Buying a Website.

And it matters just as much now as it did 2 years ago. So why do you need to ask who owns the website? What does that even mean? And why would you pay for something that isn’t yours?
I’ll break it down in today’s blog.

The Essentials of Website Ownership

Chances are, as a participant in the modern business world, you have a general sense of how the internet works. Most of the terms we discuss today will be familiar to you, and this blog section will hold a few surprises.
Still, it helps to spell all our times out in black and white, even for the most internet-savvy among us, so let’s start with the anatomy of a website.

Domain

Your domain or URL is the address where your site resides. It begins with “Https:” or “www.” but please don’t include that prefix when you’re sharing it with someone. No one wants to sit through it!
If you were to compare a domain to something in the physical world, it would be your home or business address.
You can own a domain without even having a website to put on it. In fact, some people make a tidy living by buying domains they know will be valuable later and reselling them to interested parties.

Structure and Content

Your website is the structure and content that everyone sees when they go to the URL. If the URL is the address of the piece of property where a building resides, the website is the building itself.

Hosting

Finally, you have a host for your website. It’s where you park the site once it’s built. Well-known hosts are GoDaddy, Hostinger, and Squarespace.

But to confuse matters, those hosts also frequently build websites. So who owns the website? And who owns the content?

Why Does It Matter?

All this vocabulary matters because when you buy a “website” from a company, you could be buying several different things:

A URL – to guarantee you get the name you want (POP was taken, so I had to go with the much longer poweruponlinepromotionscom.kinsta.cloud.
The product – companies like mine build sites
Hosting – a place to house the site once it’s built

But here, another thing to be aware of: each of those things comes with “ownership” to various degrees.

Who Owns the Website?

Let’s start with the URL. You can more or less own the URL, but you need to renew it regularly to keep it. Make sure you do that! The last thing you want is for someone else to snag the URL you’ve built a reputation for, so you have to buy it back – or worse – have a competitor use your hard work to benefit them.

Next, let’s talk about hosting, something you can’t own. Instead, web developers offer to host your site, or hosting companies do. Again, this is a fee you pay annually or as specified in your contract.

Finally, there is the site itself.

ometimes, a company will sell you a website, and you own it once you pay for it. Other times, you are basically renting it, and if you stop doing business with that company, you lose it all.

What’s worse is if they also own the URL, then you lose that, too.

An Honest Conversation About Site Ownership

There’s nothing inherently wrong with renting the site. The problem comes if you don’t realize that’s what you’re doing.

I have run into many clients who didn’t realize that if they stopped working with their “Website company,” they lost not only the site, but the address.

Then they needed me to not only rebuild their new site, but also rebuild their online reputation through good SEO practices.

And Hosting?

And here’s another wrinkle: I’ve met clients who signed up for hosting and a URL that is virtually inseparable from a host’s website-building platform.

In other words, I had to use the host’s native site-building software to utilize what the client already paid for, leaving them with an unenviable choice – not use what they paid for and start from scratch, or settle for a site built on subpar building software.

All-in-one site building can seem like a great deal when you first start a business and can’t afford a marketer, but it can lead to headaches down the line if you don’t ask the right questions first.

Check and see if you can migrate the site. Ask if you must use their building tools. See if they own the URL or if you do.

And see if you can take the site if you move to another website host, builder, or URL.

Your best bet is to start on the right track, but if it’s too late for that, call a reputable marketing company like POP to help with your next steps.