Who owns my website and accounts if I leave my agency?
Short answer
It depends on what your agreement says and on whose name each account was created in. You should own the domain, the website, the Google Business Profile, the analytics and the ad accounts, with the provider holding access you can remove. Check each one while the relationship is good, and read your terms for anything they say about ownership.
Who owns your website and accounts when you leave depends on what your agreement says and on whose name each account was created in. There’s no single rule that covers every case, and I can’t tell you what your contract means. You can still check each asset yourself, and the time to do it’s before you give notice.
Where ownership shows for each asset
A login to something isn’t the same as owning it. For each asset, one place settles who is in control.
| Asset | What decides control | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | The account at the registrar where the domain is registered | That the registrar account is yours, with your email address on it, and that you can sign in |
| Website | The hosting account, the administrator login, and what your agreement says about the design and content | That you have an administrator login and can get a full copy of the site |
| Google Business Profile | The person with the primary owner role | Open the profile’s people and access settings and see who holds that role |
| Google Analytics and Google Search Console | Who has administrator or owner rights on the property | That your own Google account holds the top role, not only the provider’s |
| Google Ads | Whose account it is. A provider can manage your account through a linked manager account without owning it | That the account was created for your business, and you can sign in to it directly |
| Call tracking numbers | Whose account the numbers were bought under | Where the numbers appear, and whether they can be moved to you |
Because a provider can manage an ad account without owning it, who should own the Google Ads account has a clear answer: you. The primary owner role is also the first thing to check when deciding what to do if someone else owns your Google Business Profile.
The website is the one to read your terms about
Arrangements differ most here. Some sites are built on a system you can host anywhere and are handed over in full. Others sit on the provider’s own platform and are, in effect, rented: the service ends and the site goes with it. Neither arrangement is wrong, as long as you knew which one you were buying.
Look in your terms for what they say about the design, the written content, the photos, and what happens on cancellation. If the wording is unclear, ask the provider to confirm in writing. If real money or a dispute is involved, that is a question for an attorney and not for an SEO (search engine optimization) provider.
What to do if something is in the provider’s name
Ask for it to be transferred, in writing, and do it before you give notice. Many providers will do this without argument. The order I’d follow:
- List every asset in the table and note who controls each one.
- Ask for ownership or the top role to be moved to you, one asset at a time.
- Take a full copy of the website and export what reports you can.
- Confirm you can sign in to each account on your own.
- Only then discuss ending the service, following the notice terms you agreed to.
The domain matters most. If you control the domain, a website can be rebuilt and pointed to it. If you don’t, your address on the web, and often your email, sits with someone else. If a business profile can’t be recovered through the provider, Google has its own process for requesting ownership of a profile.
How it should be set up from the start
You create every account, in your business’s name, and add the provider as a user. That’s how I work. You own the website, the domain, the Google Business Profile, the analytics and the ad accounts, and I work through access you can remove at any time. If we stop working together, nothing has to be handed back, because it was never mine. With ownership settled, the remaining question is how to switch SEO companies without losing rankings.