What happens when a small business that has a website switches ownership? Depending on how the domain registration and hosting are set up…and the relationship with the web developer, all types of things can happen.

Recently one of my small business website design clients switched ownership. I got a call from the new owners demanding passwords for everything. I hadn’t even gotten notification from the old owners this was happening. So I told the new owners what I usually tell small businesses that have changed hands – get this information from the previous small business owners. In many cases, the former small business website domain and hosting are in the name of the former owners. And while I may have the usernames and passwords, it’s not ethical of me to just hand them over to anyone. So I redirected the new small business owners back to the original owners for the website domain registration and hosting passwords. Since this information is third party, it’s best that this practice is always followed.

Even when one of my Seattle small business clients loses their email password or forgets their hosting login – I ask them to retrieve directly from the hosting company. This way I am assured that I’m not giving out information that is not mine to give out – and with all the email hacking out there, yikes.

So if your small business website ownership is changing hands, make sure you get the website domain registration username and password, as well as the website hosting username and password from the old owners. Browbeating the web developer isn’t going to help – because we’re just making sure we aren’t causing a security issue.

If you found this article helpful, please take a moment to share it with your friends, it will be much appreciated. Thanks! Jill