Who owns your website and Google Business Profile?

The registrant does: the person or business named as the registered name holder with the registrar. If an agency registered your domain in its own name or account, it controls the domain, whatever you paid. Check today. Look up your registrar, log in, and confirm your business is the registrant, with an email address you control as the contact.

ICANN, which oversees domain names, sets the rules registrars follow. Its registrant FAQ says your registrar "must provide you with the AuthInfo code within five (5) calendar days of your request," and that code is what you need to move the domain. It also lets registrars deny a transfer within 60 days of a new registration, a previous transfer or a change of registrant, so moving a domain out of an agency's name can mean a wait.

ICANN also puts duties on the registrant: provide accurate contact information and "respond to inquiries from your Registrar within fifteen (15) days." If the contact email belongs to an agency, renewal notices and verification emails go to them, not you. Our website cost guide covers what a domain and hosting cost each year.

Two things decide it: whose account the site lives in, and whether the copyright was transferred to you in writing. A site built on an agency's hosting or platform account can be hard to move even if you paid for it. And copy, design and photos created for you aren't automatically yours just because you paid for them.

The U.S. Copyright Office explains why. A commissioned work counts as "made for hire" only if it falls into one of nine categories in the law and both sides sign a written agreement saying so; otherwise, it says, "it is not a work made for hire," and ordinarily "the author is the person or persons who actually created the work." Federal law adds that a transfer of copyright "is not valid unless" it is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights (17 U.S.C. 204(a)).

So ask for a sentence in the contract that transfers copyright in the website files, copy and design to your business, and say when it happens (for example, on payment). Ask too about stock photos and themes: those are licensed, and the license should be in your name or transferable. This is not legal advice.

Owners control the profile; managers work on it. Google says managers "have mostly the same access to the profile as owners," except "they can't add or remove users or remove the profile." A profile can have several owners but only one primary owner. Hold that role yourself and give an agency manager access.

Two of Google's rules matter when access changes hands. First, "a profile must have at least one other owner or manager to transfer primary owner access to," and a primary owner can't remove themselves until they've transferred that role. Second, new owners and managers wait: "When you become a profile owner or manager, you have to wait 7 days before you can manage some profile features," including removing other users and transferring primary ownership.

That seven-day wait is why a handover should start a week before anyone's access is removed. Our Google Business Profile handbook covers setup and day-to-day management.

Ask first, then use Google's ownership request. If someone else holds the profile, search for your business at business.google.com/add, choose the listing and select Request Access. Google emails the current owner, who "has 3 days to respond." If they don't, "you may have the option to claim the profile," though Google says that option "isn't always available."

If the request is denied, Google says you'll get a rejection email, can still suggest an edit, and "can also try to appeal the decision." Claiming or appealing means verifying the business, so have proof ready that you run it, such as the business name on your website, license and signage.

A cooperative handover is faster: the agency invites you as an owner, you accept, and after the seven-day wait it transfers primary ownership to you and removes itself. Ask for that in writing, with a date. A suspended profile is a different process, covered in our Google Business Profile handbook.

Whoever holds the top role in each. In Google Ads, only Admin users can give access, change access levels and accept or remove manager-account links. In Analytics, adding or changing users needs the Administrator role. In Search Console, owners can add and remove users; full and restricted users can't. Hold the top role in all three.

Google also requires agencies to keep your ads separate. Its third-party policies say "Google requires that you use a separate account for each end-advertiser that you manage," and that partners should be "honest and transparent about your company, services, associated costs, and expected results" and make "reasonable efforts" to provide other relevant information when you ask. So ask for your own Ads account, in your business's name, with you as Admin and the agency linked through its manager account.

Search Console has one catch. A removed owner's verification token isn't deleted automatically, and Google says "As long as a user's verification token remains for a property, a deleted owner can re-verify ownership." When someone leaves, remove their access and their token.

Work through the accounts in order, from the hardest to replace to the easiest, and write down each login, role and contact email as you go. Most owners can finish in an afternoon. Anything you can't log into yourself, or where you're not the owner or admin, goes on a list to fix with your agency now.

1. Domain. Find the registrar, log in and confirm the registrant name and contact email are your business's.
2. Hosting or website platform. Log in. Confirm the account is in your business's name and billing comes to you.
3. Google Business Profile. Open People and access and confirm you're the primary owner.
4. Google Ads and Local Services Ads. Confirm you hold Admin, and see which manager accounts are linked.
5. Analytics and Search Console. Confirm Administrator and verified owner.
6. Call tracking, CRM and review tools. Confirm the accounts and the phone numbers are in your name.
7. Contract. Find the sentence on copyright and ownership of files and copy. If there isn't one, ask for it.

Transfer before you remove. Make sure you hold the owner or admin role everywhere first, then remove the agency's access account by account, and keep a record. Doing it the other way round, or in a hurry, is how profiles get stuck: Google's seven-day wait and its primary-owner rule both slow a rushed handover.

A clean exit looks like this: you confirm your top role on every account, the agency transfers anything still in its name (domain, profile ownership, files), you remove its users and manager-account links, you remove its Search Console tokens, and you change any shared passwords. Our guide to contracts, terms and exit clauses covers the notice and terms side of leaving.

Here is how Mindflow does it. You own every account. Website files and copy are yours once paid. When we build a website, we help you set up hosting, a CDN and everything the site needs to run, in your name. If you've lost access to your Business Profile, we look at it in the free review.

How the work runs, and what leaving looks like, is on how we work. Our Google Business Profile service explains the profile work itself.

The agency paid for my domain. Does it own it? Whoever is the registrant controls it, regardless of who paid. If the agency registered it in its own name, ask it to change the registrant to your business or transfer the domain to a registrar account you hold. ICANN rules may add a 60-day wait before a further transfer, so start early.

My site is on the agency's hosting. Can I move it? Usually, if you have the files and the rights to them. Ask for a full copy of the site and its database, confirm the contract transfers copyright in the files and copy to you, and check that any themes or plugins are licensed in a way you can keep. Then move it to a hosting account in your name.

Who owns the call-tracking numbers on my ads and listings? Whoever holds the call-tracking account. If those numbers sit in the agency's account, they can stop ringing your phone when you leave. Ask before you sign whether the numbers can be moved to an account in your name, and keep your main business number on your website and Business Profile.

Can an agency charge me a fee to hand over my accounts? It depends on the contract. Some agencies charge for the time a transfer takes, and the contract decides whether they can. Avoid the question by setting accounts up in your name from the start, and put the handover terms, with any cost stated in dollars, in the contract before you sign.

What if my Business Profile is suspended, not just taken? That's a separate process from an ownership request. Google reviews suspended profiles against its guidelines and has its own reinstatement request. Read the guidelines, fix anything that breaks them, and have proof ready that you run the business before you ask for a review. Our Business Profile handbook covers suspensions in more detail.

• ICANN, FAQs for Registrants: Transferring Your Domain Name, read November 1, 2026
• ICANN, Registrants' Benefits and Responsibilities, read November 1, 2026
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 30: Works Made for Hire (revised August 2024), read November 1, 2026
• Legal Information Institute, 17 U.S.C. 204, read November 1, 2026
• Google Business Profile Help, Manage your Business Profile owners and managers, read November 1, 2026
• Google Business Profile Help, Request ownership of a Business Profile, read November 1, 2026
• Google Ads Help, About access levels in your Google Ads account, read November 1, 2026
• Advertising Policies Help, About Google third-party policies, read November 1, 2026
• Analytics Help, Add, edit, and delete Analytics users and user groups, read November 1, 2026
• Search Console Help, Managing owners, users, and permissions, read November 1, 2026
• Mindflow owner-comment research (147 lines from forums and owner reviews, collected October 2026; qualitative, not a survey)

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