Your domain name is the one part of your website that cannot be rebuilt. If it is registered under a web designer’s account, your business runs on an address somebody else controls. We have met owners in Odessa who lost email and search rankings because a former provider let the domain lapse or refused to hand it over.
How to check
Look up your domain on a public WHOIS service. If the registrant is a company you do not recognize, or privacy protection hides everything and you have never had a registrar login, ask your provider for one in writing.
What to ask for
Ask that the domain be registered in your business’s name, that you hold the registrar login, and that you get written documentation of the nameservers and email records. That is how every domain we manage is set up: it stays in the client’s name, and if the client ever leaves, it goes with them along with the documentation.
