Domain, hosting, email: what belongs to whom?
Three things keep your website and email running. If you know who holds them, you stay in control, whoever builds your site.
The domain: your address
The domain is the name people type, like yourcompany.ch. You rent it year by year from a registrar. Whoever is listed as the holder decides what happens with it, so that should be your company, not your web designer.
The domain also points the way for everything else: through its DNS settings it tells the internet where your website lives and where your email should go.
Hosting: where your website lives
Hosting is the server that stores your website and delivers it to visitors. It is a monthly or yearly service. The account should be yours, or at least the contract should say that you can move the website at any time.
Backups belong with hosting: copies of your website kept somewhere else, so that a mistake or an attack does not cost you everything.
Email: often somewhere else
Your email addresses use the same domain, but they rarely run on the same server as the website. Many businesses use Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or another mail provider. That is good: the website and the mailboxes can change independently.
When you change web designer or hosting, make sure the email settings in the DNS are carried over. Otherwise the website moves and the emails stop.
Common traps
- The domain is registered in a web designer’s or an employee’s name, not the company’s.
- The renewal email goes to an address nobody reads, and the domain expires.
- Website, hosting and email sit in one package, so changing one means changing all.
- Backups exist, but on the same server as the website.
Five questions to ask yourself
- Who is the registered holder of your domain?
- Do you have the logins for the registrar and the hosting?
- Who receives the renewal invoices, and when?
- Where are your backups, and has anyone ever restored one?
- Which provider runs your email?
If you want to change
Changing web designer or hosting is normal and does not have to be risky. Collect the logins first, make sure the domain is in your name, and plan the move for a quiet day. A careful move takes the website, the DNS settings and the email settings across together, so that visitors and customers notice nothing.
How we do it
With CEEK, your domain, hosting and backups are in your name. We look after them for you, but you hold the keys and can take your website wherever you like.