A completed web project should leave you holding everything required to operate, move, or extend the site without the people who built it. That means the domain and hosting in your name, the full source, every credential, documentation of how it is put together, and the analytics and search properties. Anything absent from that list is leverage rather than an oversight.
Finished and handed over are different things
A project can be finished in the sense that the site is live and everyone is pleased with it, while leaving the business with almost nothing it could use if the relationship ended tomorrow.
This rarely announces itself. Nobody says the domain is in their name. It simply never comes up, and it surfaces two years later when you want to move and discover you cannot. The distinction between ownership and access is covered in who owns your website. This is the practical version: what should physically arrive in your hands at project close.
The handover checklist
Domain registrar access, in your business name
Not access to a builder's account containing your domain. Your own registrar account, with the registrant recorded as your business and the contact address one you control. This is the single most important item on the list, because everything else can be rebuilt and a domain you do not hold cannot be recovered on your terms.
Hosting account details
Where the site lives, what the plan is, what it costs annually, and how to reach it. If hosting sits inside a provider's account rather than yours, you should know that and know the terms under which it moves.
The complete source
Every file that makes up the site, in a form you can hand to another developer. Not a link to a page builder you rent. If the site cannot be exported and hosted elsewhere, you have a subscription rather than an asset.
Every credential, in writing
Hosting, control panel, database, email accounts, DNS, CMS if there is one, and any third-party service the site depends on. Delivered as a document rather than scattered across eight months of email.
Analytics and search properties under your account
Google Analytics and Search Console owned by an account you control, with the builder added as a user rather than the reverse. This one is reversed on most projects and it means losing your entire history when the relationship ends.
Google Business Profile ownership
Verified to your business, with any agency holding manager access rather than ownership. Profiles verified to a departed employee or a former agency are a recurring and genuinely painful problem to unwind.
Original design and image assets
Logo files in vector format, the photographs at full resolution, and any licences for purchased imagery. Licences matter: inheriting stock images you have no right to use is a liability rather than an asset.
Documentation
How the site is structured, how to make routine changes, where the forms send mail, what depends on what, and what needs to happen annually. A page or two is enough, and its absence is what turns a small future change into a discovery exercise.
The documentation worth insisting on
Most handovers include credentials and stop there. The genuinely useful part is the short document explaining how things fit together.
- Where form submissions go, and what to check when they stop arriving, which they eventually will.
- What renews and when. Domain, hosting, SSL, and any licences, with dates. A domain renewal failure takes a business offline entirely and is completely preventable.
- How to update the content you will actually want to change, such as hours, service areas, and prices.
- What is deliberate. Choices that look like mistakes to the next developer, so nobody undoes something on purpose.
- Known limitations, stated honestly, and what a future change would involve.
The first month after launch
Launch is not the end of the work and no professional treats it as such. Forms behave differently under real traffic, search engines recrawl and surface issues, and customers use the site in ways nobody predicted.
A reasonable arrangement includes a defined period after launch covering fixes to things that are not working as specified, monitoring for crawl and indexing problems, and a check that enquiries are arriving and being received. What that period covers should be stated in the proposal rather than negotiated once something breaks.
What a good builder does without being asked
You should not have to request most of this. A firm that intends to be judged on the work rather than on the difficulty of leaving will register the domain in your name at the start, set up analytics under your account from day one, and send the handover document as a matter of course.
It is also, frankly, the arrangement that produces better relationships. A client who stays because leaving is straightforward and they would rather not is a considerably better client than one who stays because they are stuck, and the second kind eventually leaves anyway, unhappily and publicly.
The question to ask before signing is simply what arrives at the end. A firm that can answer it precisely, in writing, has told you most of what you need to know about how the project will be run.
Frequently asked questions
What should I receive when a website project finishes?
Domain registrar access in your business name, hosting details, the complete source files, every credential in writing, analytics and Search Console under your own account, Google Business Profile ownership, original design assets with licences, and documentation of how it all fits together.
Who should the domain be registered to?
Your business, with a contact address you control. A domain held inside a builder's account is the single most consequential gap in a handover, because unlike the site itself it cannot simply be rebuilt if the relationship ends badly.
Should analytics be under my account or the agency's?
Yours, with the agency added as a user. Reversed, you lose your entire measurement history when the relationship ends, and that history is the only baseline you have for judging future work.
What if my current site cannot be exported?
Then it is a rental rather than an asset, and any future move means rebuilding from nothing. Worth establishing before committing further, because the cost of that discovery rises the longer the site accumulates content and search history.
How long should post-launch support last?
A defined period stated in the proposal, covering fixes to anything not working as specified plus monitoring for crawl and indexing issues. What matters most is that the period is written down rather than negotiated after something breaks.
What documentation should come with the site?
Where form submissions go, what renews and when, how to make routine content changes, which choices were deliberate, and what any known limitation would take to change. A page or two is sufficient and its absence makes every future change more expensive.
West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.
Want to know exactly what you will own?
We register domains in your name, set analytics up under your account, and send a full handover document as standard. Ask us for the list before you commit to anything.
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