> How to find out who owns your website's domain and who hosts the site, what a business should hold in its own name, and what to do if a designer holds it. - Canonical: https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/who-owns-my-website-domain/ --- # Who owns your website and its domain, and how to check A domain belongs to whoever is recorded as its registrant, and a website runs wherever its hosting is paid for. Either can be in a web designer's name and not yours. A public lookup shows who a domain is registered through and where it points, and your own invoices and logins show the rest. Check before there is a dispute, not during one. Updated 6 October 2026 ## Three things owned separately A website is three separate holdings, and each can sit with a different party. - The domain name. A registrar holds the registration on behalf of a registrant, and whoever is named as registrant controls it. - The hosting. The account where the site runs belongs to whoever opened it and pays for it. - The site itself. Who owns the design, the text, the images and the code is a matter for the contract with whoever made them. ## How to check the domain ICANN, the body that coordinates domain names, runs a free tool at lookup.icann.org for looking up what it calls “publicly available registration data”. Enter the domain. The result names the registrar, gives the dates of registration and expiry, and lists the name servers. For a name ending in .uk, the registry is Nominet, and its WHOIS service shows the registration date, the registrar and the name servers. Nominet no longer displays a registrant’s name or address by default. Where the registrant’s details are hidden, the test is practical: whoever can log in to the account at the registrar controls the domain. ## How to check the hosting The name servers in the lookup usually name the company that handles the domain’s DNS, which is often the host or the website platform. The invoices settle it: find who is paid for hosting each month or year. ## What a business should hold itself Four things belong in the business’s own name. - The registrar account, with the business as registrant and an address the business reads as the contact. - The hosting or platform account, with the designer added as a user. - An administrator login to the website. - Ownership of the Google accounts. Our guide to [sharing Search Console and Analytics access](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/share-search-console-and-analytics-access/) shows how owners and users differ. ## If the domain is in someone else’s name Ask in writing for one of two things: a change of registrant to the business, or a transfer to an account the business controls. Most designers register a client’s domain for convenience and will hand it over. Mind the order. Registrars commonly lock a domain for 60 days after the registrant’s details change, so a change of registrant can delay a transfer. Our guides to transferring a domain from [Wix](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/how-to-transfer-a-domain-from-wix/) and from [Squarespace](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/how-to-transfer-a-domain-from-squarespace/) set out those locks. If the request is refused, the evidence is the contract and the invoices showing who paid for the registration. For a .uk name, Nominet has a Dispute Resolution Service, open to a complainant with rights in the name, such as a trade mark. ## Check the renewal date The lookup also shows when the registration expires. A domain that lapses takes the website and the email down with it. Set the registration to renew automatically, on a card that is in date, with renewal notices going to an address someone reads. ## Questions people ask ### How do I find out who owns a domain name? Use a registration lookup. ICANN runs a free one at lookup.icann.org, and Nominet runs the lookup for names ending in .uk. The result shows the registrar and the name servers, and the registrant's details where they are public. ### How do I find out who hosts my website? Read the name servers in the lookup result, which usually name the company handling the domain's DNS. Then check your invoices: the host is whoever is paid for hosting, by you or by your designer. ### My web designer registered my domain. Is it mine? The registrant on record controls the domain. If that is the designer, ask in writing for the registrant to be changed to you, or for the domain to be moved to an account you control. ## Free competitor gap report Knowing what you own is the first step to improving it. Name up to three competitors and we measure your site against theirs, then send you where they are ahead and which fixes come first. 1. Speed and technical health, side by side 2. On-page SEO and site structure 3. The content they are found for and you are not 4. Who holds the searches that matter in your market 5. A prioritised list of what to fix first [Request your free report by email](mailto:contact@hadalmedusa.com?subject=Competitor%20gap%20report%3A%20Guide%3A%20Who%20owns%20your%20website%20and%20its%20domain%2C%20and%20how%20to%20check&body=Website%3A%0D%0A%0D%0AWhere%20you%20compete%20(area%2C%20country%20or%20countries)%3A%0D%0A%0D%0ACompetitors%20to%20compare%20against%20(up%20to%20three)%3A%0D%0A%0D%0AAnything%20else%20we%20should%20know%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A) - **Address** — contact@hadalmedusa.com - **Include** — your site; up to three competitors; where you compete ## More guides - [How to redesign a website without losing rankings](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/redesign-a-website-without-losing-rankings/) - [Why your Wix site is not showing up on Google](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/wix-site-not-showing-on-google/) - [Page with redirect: what it means in Search Console](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/page-with-redirect-search-console/) - [All guides](https://hadalmedusa.com/guides/) - [Redesigns and rebuilds: what the service includes](https://hadalmedusa.com/services/website-redesign/)