What to get back first, what to do when someone won’t cooperate, and how to make sure it never happens again.
If your web developer disappeared or won’t hand over your website, start with the domain. Whoever controls the domain controls where your website and email point, so it comes before the hosting, the WordPress login, and everything else. You can recover most of this without the old developer’s help. It takes some paperwork and some patience.
We take over WordPress sites from other developers all the time. Sometimes the old developer retired or closed shop. Sometimes they disappeared into bigger clients and stopped answering. Sometimes they hold the site until an invoice is paid. The recovery order is the same in every case.
Step 1: Save what you can still reach
If any login still works, use it today. A WordPress admin account, the hosting control panel, an email account on your domain. Download a full backup of the site (files and database), your images, and any form entries or customer lists. Save it all somewhere you own.
Do this before you send the “we’re moving on” email. Access has a way of “magically disappearing” once a vendor knows you’re leaving.
Step 2: Find out who owns your domain
Look your domain up at ICANN Lookup. It shows the registrar (the company the domain is registered with, like GoDaddy or Namecheap) and the expiration date. The owner’s name is often hidden behind privacy protection, so you may need to ask the registrar directly.
Two questions matter here. Whose name is listed as the registrant, and who can log in to the account? If the domain was registered in your company’s name, the registrar can help you get into the account with proof of identity and business documents. If it was registered in the developer’s name, you’ll need them to transfer it, or you’ll need the escalation steps further down.
Check the expiration date while you’re there. A domain that lapses because nobody’s watching the renewal notices is a bigger problem than a missing password.
Step 3: Find out where your website is hosted
The hosting account is where your site’s files and database live. If you don’t know who hosts it, a free hosting lookup tool will usually name the company. Old invoices from your developer are another clue.
If the hosting is in your name, contact the host’s support team and verify you’re the account holder. If the site lives on the developer’s own server, ask for a full backup or a migration to an account you own. Hosting companies can’t hand you a site that sits in someone else’s account, which is why the backup in step 1 is worth the trouble. Our guide to switching hosting providers covers what the move itself looks like.
Step 4: Get back into WordPress
If you have the hosting, you can get back into WordPress. A developer can create a new administrator account through the database or the command line in a few minutes, and most hosts will help with this too. If the admin email on the site is an address you control, the normal password reset works.
Once you’re in, look at the user list. Remove accounts that belong to people who no longer work on the site, and change every password the old developer knew.
Step 5: Reclaim your Google accounts
Search Console is the easy one. With access to your domain or hosting, you can verify yourself as an owner without anyone’s permission. Google Business Profile has an ownership request process for when someone else controls the listing.
Google Analytics is harder. There’s no recovery process if nobody on your side has admin access. If the old developer won’t add you, you may have to start a new property and accept that the history stays behind. That’s frustrating, and it’s one more reason to own these accounts from day one.
If your website is being held hostage
Sometimes the developer is reachable and refuses. Most of these situations get resolved well short of a lawyer if you climb the ladder one rung at a time.
Start with a short, specific email. List exactly what you need (domain transfer, hosting backup, admin access, analytics access) and give a reasonable date. Keep the tone calm. A clear request is harder to ignore than an angry one.
If there’s an unpaid invoice behind it, be honest with yourself about whether it’s owed. Paying a fair bill to get your keys back is often cheaper than fighting over it.
If the domain is in your company’s name, go to the registrar with your documentation. If it’s in the developer’s name, your contract and your payment records are what you’ll lean on. That’s the point where a short letter from an attorney usually gets things moving.
Read your contract either way. Some agreements say you own the site once it’s paid for. Others give the developer the rights to the code and design, and that changes what you can ask for.
Be skeptical of the word “proprietary.” One nonprofit came to us after their provider told them everything on their site was proprietary and couldn’t be handed over. It was a basic five-page WordPress site on an off-the-shelf theme. We rebuilt it the same day and got them back in control of their own website.
Who should own what
| Piece of your website | Whose name it should be in | What we often find |
|---|---|---|
| Domain name | Your business, with your email on the account | Registered in the developer’s account so they could manage renewals |
| Hosting | Your business, or a host account you can log in to | Sitting on the developer’s server with no backups you can reach |
| WordPress admin | At least one administrator account that belongs to you | Only one admin login, and it belonged to the developer |
| Premium plugin and theme licenses | Purchased under your business | Licensed to the developer, so updates stop when they’re gone |
| Google Analytics and Search Console | Your Google account, with the developer added as a user | Created under the developer’s personal Google account |
| Business email | Your business | Tied to the same hosting account as the website |
What we check after we take over a site
Getting the logins back is half of it. A site that’s been sitting unattended usually has some catching up to do, so this is the first pass we make on a WordPress site that comes to us this way.
We take a fresh backup and confirm it restores. We update WordPress, the theme, and the plugins in a safe order, then test the site. We check the PHP version, because sites that sit for a year or two often fall behind what the host supports. We look for plugins abandoned by their developers and premium licenses that expired with the old developer’s account. Then we run a security scan and clean up the user list.
Most sites come through that fine and move on to a regular website maintenance and support plan. Once in a while, the site is built on code that’s past saving, and a rebuild through our custom WordPress development process costs less than patching it every month. We’ll tell you which one you’re looking at.
How to keep it from happening again
Put the domain, hosting, and Google accounts in your business’s name, with an email address you’ll still have in five years. Add your developer as a user instead of handing them ownership.
Keep your logins in a password manager the business controls, so no one person can walk out the door with the keys.
Get support in writing. A promise to “be around if you need anything” isn’t a support plan. Ask what’s covered, how fast they respond, and what it costs each month. Our breakdown of website maintenance costs shows what a real plan includes.
Ask a new developer one more question before you sign: what happens if we part ways? The answer we give is that you’ll get everything, with a clean handoff and no hard feelings. Our goal is your stability, not holding your website hostage. Anyone you hire should be able to say the same.
Common questions
Who owns my website if a developer built it?
It depends on your contract and on whose name the accounts are in. Many agreements transfer ownership once you pay for the project. The domain belongs to whoever is listed as the registrant, so check that first.
Can a web developer keep my domain name?
If the domain is registered in your company’s name, the registrar can help you take control of it with proof of ownership. If it’s registered in the developer’s name, you’ll need them to transfer it, and your contract and payment records are what you’ll point to.
How do I find out who hosts my website?
Look up your domain’s IP address with a free hosting lookup tool, or check old invoices from your developer. Once you know the host, their support team can tell you whose account the site lives in.
What if my web developer went out of business?
Follow the same order: save what you can reach, confirm who owns the domain, then the hosting, then WordPress. Act before the next renewal date, since a domain or hosting account nobody is paying for can lapse without anyone noticing.
Stuck partway through this? Tell us where things stand, and we’ll help you figure out what you can get back and what it’ll take.
