Do I own my website? How to check in two minutes

Most owners find out the answer on the day something goes wrong: the site goes down, the person who built it stops answering, or a renewal notice arrives from a company they've never heard of.

Do the check now, while nothing is wrong.

What "my website" is made of

Three separate things, and they can belong to three different people.

The domain, your address (yourbusiness.ca). It's rented a year at a time from a company called a registrar. Whoever's account holds it controls where your address points.
The hosting, the computer the site lives on.
The site itself, the pages, photos and words.

If you lose the domain, you lose the address on your van, your cards and your Google listing. It's the one that matters most.

Check 1: who is the registrar, and when does it expire?

Go to lookup.icann.org.
Type your domain (yourbusiness.ca) and press Enter.
Read the Registrar line. That's the company whose account holds your domain.
Read the expiry date. Write it in your calendar for a month before.

You may see the owner's name hidden or replaced with "redacted". That's normal and tells you nothing about whether it's yours.

Check 2: can you sign in to that company?

This is the real test. Go to the registrar's website and choose "Forgot password" with your own business email.

If you get a reset email, the account is in your name or your email. You own it.
If you get "no account found", or the email goes to someone else, the account belongs to whoever set it up. That's often the person who built your site.

Check 3: who gets the renewal emails?

Search your inbox for your domain name and "renew". If you've never seen one, they're going to someone else.

If the answer is "not me"

Don't panic, and don't make a fuss with the person who set it up. Most of them did it as a favour or a convenience and forgot. Ask them to move the domain into an account in your name. How to get your site and domain back walks through it, including what to do if they don't answer.

If you want, text me the domain name. I'll look it up and tell you what I see.

Written by Mackenzie Bowes in Vernon, BC. October 26, 2026.