Skyward Digital
Skyward Digital Who owns your website
For anybody who already has a website Every figure here includes GST

A website is five accounts, and they are rarely all yours.

Most people who paid for a website think they bought one thing. What they actually have is a domain name, a DNS record, a hosting account, the site itself and a Google listing — five separate items, each held in somebody's name, and hardly anybody was told at the start whose. That is fine for years. It matters on exactly one day: the day you want to change something, move somewhere else, or ring the person who built it and find that they have stopped answering. This page is how to find out where you stand tonight, in about ten minutes, without asking anybody anything.

The five accounts Skip to the six checks
Time it takesAbout ten minutes
Who you have to askNobody
What we are selling hereNothing
If it comes back wrong022 584 0585
01 / THE FIVE ACCOUNTS

What you actually
bought, itemised —
and who tends
to hold each bit.

None of this is complicated and none of it is hidden. It is simply never explained, because at the start of a job nobody wants to open a conversation about leaving. So here are the five parts of a website, in plain words, with the arrangement that is normal for each and the one that costs you. Read it once and you will understand your own situation better than most people who have been paying for a site for a decade.

01
The one that decides everything

The domain name

Your address. The thing on the van, on the invoices and in every customer's phone. It is rented annually from a registrar, and the person or company recorded as the holder is the one who controls it — not the one who pays the invoice, and not the one who uses it.

Usually held byYou, if you registered it. Often the person who built the site, if they registered it on your behalf and nobody ever moved it across. When the name is not yoursEverything else on this list becomes negotiable. Your email address, your search results and the cards in a thousand toolboxes all point at an address you do not hold.
02
The invisible one

The DNS, or where the address points

A short list of instructions attached to the domain, saying which computer serves the website and which one handles the email. Changing it takes a minute and takes effect within hours. It is why a site can move host without anybody noticing.

Usually held byWhoever has the login to the domain, and sometimes a second party the domain was pointed at years ago and then forgotten about. When the name is not yoursThis is the one that takes email down. A site can be rebuilt in a week; a business whose email stops arriving on a Tuesday has a different kind of problem.
03
The monthly one

The hosting or platform account

The space the site actually runs in, and increasingly a subscription to a platform rather than a server. It is the line on somebody's credit card every month, which is the easiest of the five to find out about, because somebody is paying it.

Usually held byThe studio, on a plan covering many clients, and billed on to you as part of a monthly fee. That is an ordinary and perfectly honest arrangement, and it is not the same as you having an account. When the name is not yoursYou cannot take a copy, you cannot let anybody else look at it, and the site ends the day the plan does — including on the day the studio closes rather than the day you leave it.
04
The one everybody assumes

The site itself, and what is in it

Two different things wearing one name. The words, the photographs and the logo are yours because you made them or paid for them. The build — the design, the templates, the code — is whatever the agreement says it is, and plenty of perfectly reasonable agreements licence it rather than sell it.

Usually held byYou for the content, in practice. The build depends entirely on what was signed, and on many small jobs nothing was signed at all. When the name is not yoursYou can walk away with everything a customer ever sees and still not be able to take the site. Ask before you need to know, and ask for it in writing.
05
The one people forget entirely

The Google Business Profile

The map listing with your hours, photos and reviews on it. It is not part of your website, it is free, and for a local business it is often doing more of the selling than the site is. It has a primary owner, other owners, and managers, and those are three different levels of control.

Usually held byWhoever claimed it, which is regularly an agency, a franchise head office, or a staff member who left in 2021 and whose personal address is still on it. When the name is not yoursThe reviews are the part that hurts. Years of them attach to the listing, not to you, and they are the single thing you cannot rebuild by spending money.

If you read that and cannot answer for two or three of them, you are in the ordinary position rather than a bad one. Nearly nobody knows, because nearly nobody was told. The next section is how to find out for each one without ringing the person you are wondering about — which matters, because the moment you ask is the moment the arrangement gets discussed, and it is better to have the answers first.

02 / CHECK IT TONIGHT

Six things you can
find out in ten minutes,
without asking
a single person.

Do these before you have any conversation with anybody. Not because you are expecting bad news — most people find everything exactly as it should be and go back to what they were doing — but because a question asked while you already know the answer is a completely different question. Write the six answers down somewhere that is not your inbox.

Check one

Look your own domain up

The Domain Name Commission runs a public lookup for every .nz name. Put yours in and read the registrant, which is the holder. If it says your business, that is the answer to the most important question on this page. If it says a studio, a person, or a company you have never heard of, that is worth knowing calmly rather than in a crisis. Note the caveat: an individual registrant can apply the privacy option, so withheld details are common and are not evidence of anything by themselves.

Check two

Try to log in to the domain itself

Separate from the lookup, and more practical. Find the registrar — the company that bills for the name — and see whether you have an account there you can actually open. Being the person who pays the annual invoice is not the same as being the person who can move it, and the difference only ever shows up when you try.

Check three

Find out who takes the hosting money

Look for the charge. Either it is on your card, in which case find the account and open it, or it is inside a monthly fee to somebody else, in which case the account is theirs and you are a tenant. Both are normal. Only one of them means you can hand the site to another person without anyone's permission.

Check four

Open your Google profile and read the access list

In the profile's own settings there is a list of people with access, and each is marked as the primary owner, an owner or a manager. If your name is not at the top of it, you are managing a listing somebody else controls — along with every review on it. This is the quickest of the six and the one most often a surprise.

Check five

Ask yourself where your email actually lives

If you use an address on your own domain, it is running through the same DNS the website is, and it usually matters more than the website. Know which provider it is and whether you hold that account too. This is the one to sort out first if any of the five comes back with the wrong name on it.

Check six

See whether you hold a copy of your own content

Your photos, your words, your logo in a file that is not a screenshot. Nobody can withhold what you already have a copy of, and this is the only one of the six you can fix tonight on your own, in ten minutes, whatever the other five say. Do it even if everything else came back perfect.

Six answers, ten minutes, and nothing said to anybody. If all six come back in your name, you are in better shape than most and this page has cost you a cup of tea. If one or two came back wrong, that is the ordinary result, it is usually the domain or the Google profile, and it is almost always an old arrangement that nobody revisited rather than anything done to you. Section 04 is how to ask for it, in order, starting with the version that works most of the time.

03 / WHAT THIS PAGE WILL NOT TELL YOU

Four things we are
not going to pretend
to know about
your situation.

Everything above this is about finding out where things stand, which is a matter of fact and checkable in an evening. What follows from it is not, and a page that blurred the two would be doing you harm while sounding helpful.

Not ours to say

What you are legally entitled to

We build websites. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. What you are owed turns on what was agreed, what was paid, what was written down and what was not, and none of that is visible from here. Anybody in our trade telling you confidently what your rights are is guessing on your behalf about the one thing you would want to be right.

Who to ask instead: a lawyer if there is real money in it, Citizens Advice or the Disputes Tribunal if there is not, and your accountant about what you have actually been paying for. For a .nz domain specifically, the Domain Name Commission publishes the rules its registrars work under and runs a dispute resolution service.

Not ours to say

That somebody has behaved badly

Almost every arrangement on this page was made with nobody intending anything by it. A domain gets registered on a Friday to get a job started and never moved across. A hosting plan covers eleven clients because that is cheaper for all eleven. A profile gets claimed by whoever was in the room. None of that is sharp practice and calling it that would be both unfair and useless to you.

What is true regardless: good intentions and a clear record are different things, and only one of them survives somebody retiring, selling up or falling out with you. Ask for the record. Most people hand it over the same afternoon.

Not ours to say

Whether your current site is any good

This page is about who holds what, which has nothing at all to do with whether the site works. Plenty of sites in somebody else's name are doing their job perfectly well, and plenty in the owner's own name are not. Sorting out the paperwork is not a reason to rebuild anything, and we are not going to pretend it is in order to sell you a build.

The honest order: get the domain and the profile into your name, keep a copy of your content, and then decide about the website separately, later, on its own merits. Those first three are worth doing even if you never change a single page.

Not ours to say

That it is worth fighting over

Usually it is not. A domain renewal is tens of dollars a year and a week of your attention is worth considerably more than that. If somebody will not release a name and the business is not genuinely built on it, the unglamorous answer is often to take a different address, keep the reviews and the customers, and get on with the work. Nobody selling you anything will tell you that.

When it is worth it: when the address is on the van, on the signage and in the head of every customer you have; when the email runs through it; or when the reviews are attached to the listing. Those are the three that cannot simply be re-bought, and they are the ones to spend effort on.

One checkable fact rather than an opinion, and it is the useful one: under the rules .nz registrars work to, a provider must give the domain name holder an authorisation code when the holder asks for it, free of charge, and must not decline or delay a transfer request by withholding it. That is published by the Domain Name Commission rather than asserted by us, and it is worth knowing before any conversation about moving a name. The questions to put to anybody quoting you a build are on the costs page, and question seven on it is this one, asked before you sign rather than after.

04 / ASKING FOR IT

How to ask, in order,
starting with the way
that works most
of the time.

Most of these end at step two with somebody being perfectly helpful, so start there and mean it. Each step only exists because the one before it did not work, and going straight to the end of the list turns a five-minute favour into a matter somebody has to take a position on. Keep it in writing from step two onward, and keep it friendly the whole way down.

  1. Step 1

    Do the six checks first

    Know which of the five accounts you are actually asking about before you open your mouth. "Can I have my website" gets a confused answer; "can the domain be put in the company's name" gets a task somebody can do. Precision here is most of the job.

  2. Step 2

    Just ask, plainly, and without a reason

    A short message saying you are tidying up the business records and would like the domain and the Google profile in the company's name. No grievance, no notice of leaving, no solicitor's phrasing. This works the overwhelming majority of the time, and it works better when it is not framed as the opening of a negotiation.

  3. Step 3

    Ask again in writing, with a date on it

    If nothing happens, send the same request by email — so there is a record — naming the domain, saying what you are asking for, and giving a reasonable date. Still friendly. Most second asks are answered because the first one was genuinely forgotten in a busy week rather than ignored.

  4. Step 4

    Go around the person to the registrar

    If you are the recorded holder, you do not need the person who built the site at all — you need the company that bills for the name, and you can ask them directly for the authorisation code to move it. That is the whole point of knowing the answer to check one before you start.

  5. Step 5

    If you are not the holder, that is a different request

    Changing the registrar and changing the holder are two separate acts, and the second needs the current holder's agreement. Where that is refused on a .nz name, the Domain Name Commission runs a dispute resolution service for people who believe they have a right to a name. That is the door, and it is a formal one — which is why it is step five rather than step one.

  6. Step 6

    Secure what nobody can withhold

    In parallel with all of it, take copies. Your photographs, your words, your logo, your customer list, your invoices. Screenshot every page of the site. None of this requires anybody's cooperation and it turns the worst case from starting again into an afternoon of copying and pasting.

  7. No remedy

    Nobody ever kept a copy

    This is the version that actually costs money, and it is almost never a refusal. A host goes under, a subscription lapses, a laptop dies, somebody retires, and eleven years of photographs and text that existed in exactly one place are gone. No dispute, no villain and no remedy. It is the failure this whole page can prevent, and step six is the entire prevention.

05 / OURS

The same five
questions, answered
about us.

A page like this is worthless from somebody who will not answer it about themselves, so: the domain is registered in your name and we are added as a manager, removable the moment you say so. The hosting account is yours. The content is yours because it is yours. The build is yours outright rather than licensed. The Google profile is registered to you, and we are a manager on it rather than an owner. You get every login on the first day, not on the last one, and none of that changes if you leave.

Working out where you stand

Send us your domain and we will tell you what the public record says, what it does not say, and which of the five accounts is worth chasing first — whether or not you ever spend anything here. It takes about ten minutes and it is not the opening of a sales process. This page is the same answer written out, so most people should not need to ask at all.

Freeand not a foot in the door

Google Business Profile setup

Claimed, verified, in your name, with the categories, service areas, hours, photos and review link done properly. Relevant here because it is also the fix when a listing is sitting under somebody else's account. It is registered to you, not to us, and you keep it whether or not you ever build a site with us.

$395one-off

A website, if you decide to move

Three tiers, four to eight pages and up. The first thing built is your real homepage, before any money moves, so what you are judging is the site rather than a promise about one. Nothing gets switched over until the new one is ready, your old address keeps working, and the logins are yours from day one.

$2,450to $5,950, three tiers

Care plan

Hosting, updates, backups, security, the small changes you text through, and a monthly tune-up of the profile. No lock-in and no exit fee, because there is nothing to hold — the site, the domain and the content are already in your name, so leaving is us handing over a list of logins you already have.

$169per month, or $1,690 a year

Doing it yourself instead

A real option rather than a threat. Take the logins, run it yourself, and ring us when you want something. Plenty of businesses are better off here and we would rather say so now than have you find out in a year. Nothing about your site changes except who is looking after it.

$0the second door, always open

Every figure on this page includes GST and nothing is added at the end. The founding price takes $500 off any website, for the first ten clients, in exchange for three things written into the job: an honest Google review, a testimonial we can use, and permission to publish the build as a case study. It is a trade rather than a discount, and we do not discount off-menu. Full pricing, tier by tier, and how to read anybody's quote.

06 / STRAIGHT UP

The awkward
questions about
our own position.

This whole page is designed to make me distrust the person who built my site. It would be a fair reading if the page ended at section 01, which is why it does not. Section 03 says outright that nearly all of these arrangements were made with nobody intending anything, that it is often not worth fighting over, and that sorting the paperwork out is not a reason to rebuild anything. If you do the six checks, find everything in order and never speak to us, this page has done exactly what it was written to do.

How often does this actually go wrong? We do not know and we are not going to make a number up. There is no New Zealand figure we would stand behind, and under the Fair Trading Act a claim needs reasonable grounds at the time it is made. What we can say is what is verifiable: a website is five separable accounts, they can be held by different people, and most owners have never been told which of them they hold. Everything on this page follows from that rather than from a statistic.

Have you got clients this has happened to? No. Skyward is new and has no clients yet, so nothing here is a story about somebody we rescued — it is how the five accounts work and what the published rules say about moving a .nz name. We would rather tell you that than imply a decade of war stories we have not had. The first ten clients get $500 off for helping us fix the not-having-any problem, in exchange for a review, a testimonial and permission to publish the build.

So why write it? Because ownership is the thing we say about ourselves on every page of this site — you own the site, the domain and the content, logins on the first day — and a claim like that is worth very little until the reader knows enough to test it. This page is the test, and it works on us too. Ask us the five questions in section 05. Ask the next studio as well, before you sign anything, and compare the two answers.

07 / QUESTIONS

Six we get asked
about this.

The general ones — payment, what we need from you, what happens if you say no — are answered at length on the homepage. These are the ones about who holds what.

My web designer registered the domain for me. Is that bad?

Not in itself, and it is extremely common. Registering a name on somebody's behalf to get a job moving is an ordinary thing to do, and thousands of them are then perfectly well looked after for years. What matters is whether the recorded holder is you or them, and whether anybody ever checked. Look it up, and if it is in their name, ask for it to be put in yours while everyone is still getting along.

If they say yes, which is the usual answer, that is the whole matter closed in an afternoon. If the answer is a long silence, you have learnt something useful at no cost.

Can I move my website without losing my Google ranking?

If you keep the same domain, you are not moving the address at all — you are changing what it points at, which is the ordinary way sites get rebuilt. The part that needs doing properly is pointing the old page addresses at the new ones so nothing that already links to you breaks, and keeping the old site up until the new one is ready.

What we will not tell you is what it will do to where you appear in results, because nobody can honestly know that in advance and we are not going to guess with your business. We say the same thing about rankings everywhere else on this site.

They are holding my site until I pay an invoice. What now?

That is a different situation from the rest of this page and we are not the right people to advise on it. An unpaid bill changes the conversation, and what either side is entitled to depends on what was agreed. Talk to a lawyer if the sum is large, or Citizens Advice or the Disputes Tribunal if it is not.

What we would say regardless is the unglamorous part: settle what is genuinely owed before anything else, because it is the only move that puts you back on solid ground, and take copies of your own content in the meantime since nobody can withhold what you already have.

What if the person who built it has disappeared?

Work from the accounts rather than the person. Whoever bills for the domain will still exist, and if you are the recorded holder you can deal with them directly without ever finding the builder. If the business that held it has been struck off, the Domain Name Commission is the place to ask about a .nz name, and they say to contact them where the holder no longer exists.

The hosting is usually the real loss in this situation rather than the domain, which is why keeping your own copy of your content is the step worth doing today rather than the day you need it.

I am happy with my site. Is there any point doing this?

Yes, and it is the best time to do it. Ten minutes of checking while everybody is on good terms is a favour somebody does you cheerfully; the same request during a disagreement is a position. Being happy with your website is not a reason to skip it, it is the reason it will be easy.

And it does not commit you to anything. Nearly everybody who does the six checks finds everything in order, writes the answers down and carries on exactly as they were.

If I build with you, what do I actually end up holding?

The domain registered in your name with us as a removable manager, the hosting account in your name, the content because it was always yours, the build outright rather than on licence, and the Google profile registered to you with us as a manager rather than an owner. Every login on the first day.

The care plan is us looking after all of that, not us keeping any of it. There is no lock-in and no exit fee, because there is nothing to hand over that you are not already holding. The second door is set out on the homepage in the same words we would use on the phone.

ALSO WRITTEN

Three places to
go from here.

One if the checks came back fine and the real question is what a rebuild would cost, one if this year is not the year for a website at all, and one if the thing eating your evenings was never the website.

The number

What a website costs, and how to read a quote.

Two honest quotes can be four thousand dollars apart. The ten decisions that move the number, the running costs no quote includes, and eight questions to put to anybody who sends you one.

 $395

The listing with your reviews on it.

Around two thirds of these searches end without anybody clicking through to a website at all. What they see instead is the map listing — and it is the one account on this page whose contents cannot be re-bought.

 The evenings

What can actually be handed over, and what cannot.

Software cannot do the job you have never written down. Eight recurring jobs sorted by whether they are ready, and the four we would not automate at any price.
08 / START

Send us the domain.
We will tell you
what the record says.

You do not need to have decided anything, and you do not need to be leaving anybody. Send the address and we will tell you what the public record shows, what it does not show, and which of the five accounts would be worth sorting out first — including, where it is the truth, that everything looks fine and there is nothing here worth your Saturday.

Phone or text022 584 0585 Emailjosh@skywarddigital.co.nz What we hold, and for how longBoth doors, on the homepage

Josh reads these himself. There is no salesperson, no sequence of emails afterwards, and asking a question does not put you on a list.

We use these details only to reply to your enquiry and, if you go ahead, to run the job. We don't sell them, we don't add you to a mailing list, and you can ask us to delete them any time by emailing Josh. No spam, no obligation, no sales sequence. The full privacy statement says who else handles them and for how long.