How to get access to your domain and hosting

As the owner of the website, you should have your own access to the domain, DNS, hosting and WordPress, or at least own the accounts. Your supplier can have its own logins, but the accounts should be in your company's name. This is much easier to sort out while the working relationship is good than after a falling-out.

What you should have access to

• The domain: your company is the registrant, and the email address on the registration is one you actually monitor.
• The registrar: an account where you can renew the domain and get the transfer code (also called an auth code or EPP code).
• DNS: access to the DNS settings, whether they're at the registrar, the hosting provider or in Cloudflare.
• The hosting: the account is in your company's name, and you receive the invoice.
• WordPress: your own user account with the Administrator role.
• Files and database: SFTP access and database access, for example through phpMyAdmin in the hosting panel.
• Backups: where they're stored and how you restore the site from them.
• Two-factor authentication: the codes live in a password manager or on a phone your company owns, not on one employee's phone or with the supplier.

Check what you have today

1. Look up the domain with the registry or the registrar, for example ICANN Lookup for .com and other generic top-level domains. Note who is listed as the registrant and who the registrar is.
2. Log in to WordPress and go to Users → All Users. Check whether you're listed with the Administrator role.
3. Try logging in at the registrar and the hosting provider. Note which accounts you can log in to and which you're missing.
4. Store the logins in a password manager your company owns, not in emails or documents.

Ask for access in writing

Ask for your own logins rather than the supplier's passwords. That way you can remove the supplier's access when the work ends without affecting your own. Send a specific list, for example:

Hi,

We would like our own access to everything that belongs to the website yourdomain.com. We are asking for:

1. the domain to be transferred to our company, if it is not registered to us
2. our own administrator user in WordPress for the email address name@yourdomain.com
3. our own user at the hosting provider, or the account to be transferred to us
4. access to the DNS settings
5. a full backup of the files and the database

We ask that this is in place by [date].

To create an administrator account for you in WordPress, the supplier goes to Users → Add User, chooses "Administrator" under "Role" and clicks "Add User".

When the supplier owns the accounts

If the domain is registered to the supplier, it has to be transferred to you. A change of registrant goes through the registrar, and the supplier, as the current registrant, has to approve it. If you also want to change registrar, you need the transfer code.

If the hosting account belongs to the supplier, the supplier has to ask the hosting provider to transfer it to you. The alternative is for the supplier to give you a copy of the files and the database, so the site can be moved to an account in your name.

If DNS is in the supplier's Cloudflare account, add the domain to a Cloudflare account your company owns. Check that every DNS record has been copied over, especially the MX and TXT records for email, before you change the nameservers at the registrar.

When you're stuck

If the supplier won't give you access, your contract determines what you're entitled to. Without the registrant's consent, a domain can only be transferred after a decision in a domain dispute process or by a court. If the supplier refuses, you'll need legal help.