Who Owns Your Business Domain? 10 Questions Owners Ask

Your company should own its domain name, in its own registrar account, under a company email address. Below are ten questions owners ask about domain ownership, renewals and getting control back from a former web designer or IT person.

Who should own our business domain name?

Your business. The registrant should be the company's legal name, with a shared contact address like admin@yourfirm.com rather than one person's mailbox, and the registrar account should belong to the company too.

Your web designer or IT provider can have delegated access. They shouldn't be the owner.

How do I find out who controls our domain?

Ask who has the registrar login, then log in and check the registrant details. Public WHOIS lookups often hide the owner behind privacy services now, so they rarely give a clear answer. If nobody on your team can log in, that's your answer: someone outside the company controls it.

Our old web designer registered the domain. How do we get it back?

Ask them to change the registrant to your company or move the domain into your own registrar account. If you transfer it to a new registrar, you'll need the authorization code. Under ICANN rules, your registrar "must provide you with the AuthInfo code within five (5) calendar days" of your request (ICANN).

Why can't we move the domain right after changing the owner?

ICANN's transfer rules block it for 60 days. You can't transfer a domain to a different registrar "within 60 days of making changes to the registrant name, organization or email address" (ICANN), though some registrars let you opt out.

Plan the ownership change and the registrar move together so the lock doesn't catch you mid-project.

What happens if our domain expires?

Your email and website stop working. Registrars must send at least two reminders, about a month and about a week before expiration (ICANN).

If those go to a former employee's inbox, nobody sees them. After deletion there's a 30-day redemption period, usually with a recovery fee.

Should we turn on auto-renew?

Yes. Turn on auto-renew, register for several years at a time, and attach a company card that won't expire next month.

Then put the renewal date on a shared calendar anyway. Auto-renew fails quietly when the card on file is declined, and an expired domain takes your email down with it.

What's the difference between a registrar, DNS host and web host?

The registrar is where you lease the name. The DNS host stores the records that point that name at your email and website. The web host runs the website itself.

One company can do all three, or three different companies can. Know who handles each one, because changing any of them can break email.

Should our IT provider have access to the registrar account?

Yes, through their own named user account with delegated permissions, not your owner login. That way they can update DNS records for email security and migrations, and you can remove their access without changing the master password. If your registrar doesn't support multiple users, it's worth moving to one that does.

What is a registrar lock, and should it be on?

A registrar lock (also called a transfer lock) stops anyone from moving your domain to another registrar without first unlocking it. Keep it on, and turn it off only during a planned transfer.

Pair it with multi-factor authentication on the registrar account, because whoever controls that login controls your email.

Should we buy other versions of our domain?

Buy the .com, .net and .co versions and the one or two most obvious typos, then point them at your main site. Scammers register near-matches to impersonate businesses. See our guide to lookalike domain attacks for the full defense, since buying names only covers part of it.

Not sure who holds the keys to your domain, DNS and Microsoft 365 tenant? We'll document it as part of a complimentary IT review. If you're changing providers, our IT provider transition process covers the full handover.