What you should get when a web designer hands over your website

When a web designer hands over your website, you should end up owning the domain, the hosting account, the Google Search Console property and the Google Business Profile, with the designer invited as a user you can remove rather than holding the keys. You should also get the privacy policy and terms, any email addresses the site publishes, a note of what runs on the site, and a way to change the parts you will change most.

Who should own the domain?

You should, in your business's name and on your own registrar account. The .ae domain policy says a registrant does not own a domain name, but holds an exclusive licence to use it, and that licence sits with whoever is named as registrant. If your designer registered it in their own name, they hold that licence, not you. For a co.ae name the policy goes further and ties the name to a company the registrant owns or controls.

Moving a .ae name to a new registrant needs a formal change of registrant through the registrar. It is far easier to get it right at the start.

Whose account should the hosting be on?

Yours. Whether the site runs on Cloudflare, a WordPress host or anything else, the account it lives on should be in the business's name, with the designer invited as a member. Then the site does not depend on the designer's account staying open.

Ask the same of any designer: which account is the site on, and who pays for it. If the honest answer is "mine", you are renting your own website.

What Google access should I get?

• Google Search Console, with you as a verified owner. There is no transfer button. The designer adds you as an owner, then removes their own access when the work ends.
• Google Business Profile, with you as the primary owner. Owners and managers are invited by email and have to accept. Google makes new owners wait seven days before they can transfer primary ownership or remove other users, so do this before the last week of a project, not in it.
• The sitemap submitted in Search Console, so you can see which pages Google has indexed.
• Analytics, if the site uses any, on your own account.

Do I need a privacy policy and terms?

If the site collects any personal data, you need to tell people what you do with it, and a privacy policy is the usual way. It should name the analytics, embeds and forms the site actually uses, and give an email address where people can ask about their data. I have written up what the UAE's data protection law asks for separately.

Which settings should be checked before handover?

• HTTPS forced on every page.
• One version of the address. The www version should redirect to the bare domain, or the other way round, never both serving the same page.
• Any email address the site publishes actually receives mail. Send a test.
• Contact forms and WhatsApp links tested on a phone, end to end.
• The phone number on the site matches the Business Profile and the social bios. Old numbers tend to survive in social media bios.

What should I be able to change myself?

The thing you change most. For a garage that is gallery photos, for a restaurant it is the menu, and for a salon it is prices. Everything else can stay with a developer. You should not need one to swap a photo.

What paperwork should I get?

• A list of every account the site depends on, and who owns each one.
• Where the code lives. Ask where the code lives, and whether there is a way to roll back to the previous version.
• What is still open. Every project ends with a few items waiting on the client. Get them as a written list, not scattered through a chat.
• How to get help, and what it costs.

What should never be in a handover?

Passwords in a group chat. Give a shared login privately, once, and change it if anyone who had it leaves. Better still, use invitations, which every platform above supports.