My website is being held hostage. How do I get it back?
The person who built your website stopped answering. Or the company went out of business. Or they want more money before they will hand anything over. Meanwhile it is your business name on that site, and you cannot change a word of it. This happens a lot more than people think, and it is almost always fixable.
What being held hostage usually looks like
Very few of these start out as bad intentions. Usually a friend or a small web company set everything up years ago, put it all under their own accounts to keep things simple, and then life moved on. The phone number stopped working. The email bounces. The company is gone.
Sometimes it is uglier. A developer and a business owner have a falling out, and suddenly the password stops working and there is a bill attached to getting it back. Either way, you end up in the same spot: your website is live, it has your name on it, and somebody else holds the keys.
First, figure out what you actually own
A website is really three separate things, and it helps to check each one on its own. The domain name is your address, like yourbusiness.com. The hosting is the computer your site lives on. The site itself is the design, the words, and the photos.
The domain matters most, because whoever controls it controls where your customers end up. You can look up which company your domain is registered with for free at lookup.icann.org. Write down the registrar name and the expiration date. If that date is coming up soon, this just became urgent, because a domain that lapses can be bought by somebody else.
Get the domain back before anything else
If the domain was registered in your business name, the registrar can usually help you prove that and take control, even with no password. Have your business license, a photo ID, and anything showing you paid for the website ready to go.
If it was registered in the developer's name, it is harder but still very often doable. Receipts, invoices, emails, and your contract all help. When a developer is refusing to cooperate, a short letter from an attorney fixes a surprising number of these. We are not lawyers and we will tell you when it is time to call one.
Then worry about the website
Here is the good news. Even if you never see the original files again, your website can almost always be rebuilt. While the old site is still up, save copies of every page, every photo, and all of your text. If it is already down, the Internet Archive at web.archive.org often has saved copies of it going back years.
A lot of owners find that rebuilding ends up better than getting the old one back. You get a faster site, set up in your own name from day one, with nobody else holding anything over you. See our website recovery service for how we handle it.
Make sure it never happens again
Once you are back in control, fix the setup so this cannot repeat. The domain should be registered in your business name, with your own email address, on auto-renew with your own card. You should have your own login to the hosting account, not just the developer's.
Then write it all down on one page: where the domain is registered, where the site is hosted, and who has access. Put it wherever you keep your business insurance papers. It takes twenty minutes and it is the difference between a phone call and a crisis.
Frequently asked questions
Is it legal for my web developer to keep my website?
It depends on your contract and on who paid for what. The words and photos you supplied are generally yours, but who owns the design and the code comes down to what you agreed to. If there is real money or a real dispute involved, talk to an attorney. We can handle everything technical once you have the right to it.
How long does it take to get a website back?
When the domain is in your name, getting control back often takes a few days. When it is in someone else's name it can take a few weeks. Rebuilding the site itself usually runs alongside, so you are not sitting still while the paperwork moves.
What if my domain has already expired?
Call right away. Most domains have a short grace period after expiring when the original owner can still renew. Once that window closes, anyone can buy it.
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