My Web Designer Disappeared: How to Get Your Domain, Website and Email Back

People often think of a website as one thing. It is really four, and they can sit with different companies.

• Your domain: the address, like yourbusiness.com.au.
• Your website files: the pages and photos, kept with your web host, the company that keeps your website online.
• Your email: the service behind you@yourbusiness.com.au. It runs on your domain's settings, not on your website.
• Your Google Business Profile: your free listing on Google and Google Maps.

If you run ads, add your Google Ads and Facebook ad accounts to the list.

Search your domain on auDA WHOIS, auDA's free lookup. The result shows the registrar and the name of the registrant, the person or business that holds the licence.

If the registrant is your business, you hold the domain. If it is your web designer's name or company, you need their help, or the steps further down. Every .au name has a registrar, even if you bought it through a reseller (a company that sells domains for another).

Ask your registrar for your transfer authorisation code. If the contact email on the domain belongs to your old designer or no longer works, tell the registrar and show who you are. auDA's password recovery tool is the other way to get the code (auDA: transfer a name to a different registrant).

Then give the code to your new provider, who starts the move. Our domain guide has the full steps for transferring a domain name.

Ask them first, in writing, to change the registrant to your business. Under auDA's rules the new registrant has to be eligible, sign a new licence agreement and pay the licence fee. Full remaining years carry over, up to five, and part years drop off (auDA: transfer a name to a different registrant).

If they will not answer, these are the next steps auDA sets out:

1. 1

   Complain to the registrar

   Go to the registrar that manages the licence today, because every complaint has to start there (auDA: submit a complaint). auDA gives the registrar 30 days to resolve it, unless it says it needs longer. A complaint only works if the holder breaks auDA's rules, for example by not being eligible to hold the domain, so being unhappy with your designer is not enough (auDA: the .au complaints process). A domain under complaint cannot be transferred while the complaint runs, so try the written request first (auDA: transfer a name to a different registrant).

2. 2

   Complain to auDA

   If you are not happy with that outcome, you can complain to auDA. auDA looks at whether its rules were broken. A dispute over who has rights to a name goes to the auDRP, the next step here (auDA: the .au complaints process). An upheld complaint does not move the domain to you (auDA: submit a complaint). A licence can be suspended or cancelled when the holder breaks the rules (auDA: .au Domain Administration Rules, Licensing).

3. 3

   Use the auDRP or legal action

   If you want the domain transferred to you, auDA points to its dispute process, the auDRP, or legal action against the registrant. For the auDRP you must show the name matches a name you have rights to, that the holder has no right to it, and that they acted in bad faith, meaning dishonestly. auDA says fees start at $2,000 (auDA: the auDRP process).

Keep every invoice and email that shows you paid for the domain. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

First check who holds it. If the registrant is your business, go to the registrar and your web host.

If the registrant is the failed company, act quickly. auDA's rules, approved 22 June 2026, treat a licence as cancelled 30 calendar days after the company that holds it stops existing, and it cannot be transferred from that date. The exception is documents showing that, before then, the company agreed to transfer the licence to the person using the domain (auDA: .au Domain Administration Rules, Licensing).

So write to the liquidator, the person appointed to wind the company up, and ask for the licence to be moved to your business while the company still exists. Keep any email or contract where the company agreed the domain was for you. Once a licence is cancelled, auDA can only restore it if a new licence for that name has not gone to someone else.

1. 1

   Check your bank statements and email

   Look for a regular charge from a hosting company.

2. 2

   Look your domain up

   If it is a .au name, auDA WHOIS lists your name servers, the addresses that point your domain at the company running its settings. That company may be your host, your registrar or a separate DNS service (a company that only runs domain settings), so treat it as a clue.

3. 3

   Ask whoever built the website

   Ask them which company hosts it.

Your website files sit with your web host, which may not be the company that holds your domain.

Ask for a full copy of the files and any logins. Check your agreement or invoices for who holds the rights to the design and code. A website on a website builder or a closed system may not move at all, so you may need a rebuild.

If you control the domain, a website can usually be rebuilt from what is publicly visible on the live site, with no logins from the old builder.

You keep your address if you keep your domain, because the address runs on the domain. The mailboxes are a different matter. If your old provider runs your email, find out where it is hosted, and copy your old mail to the new mailbox before you change the settings on your domain that send email to your mailbox. Old messages do not move by themselves.

If customers visit you at a shop or office, go to business.google.com/add and enter your business name and address. Choose your business, and you will see a message that someone else may manage this profile. Select Request Access and fill in the form.

Google emails the current owner, who has 3 days to respond. If they do not, you may be able to claim the profile from the confirmation email, though Google says that option is not always available.

If your business has no shop or office that customers visit, Google's steps are different: use the Contact us link on the same help page and choose Transfer ownership of listing (Google Business Profile Help: request access to a profile).

Register your domain in your own business's name, using an email address you control. Keep the logins for your domain, your email and your Google listing somewhere safe, and make sure you are an owner of your Google listing.