WEBSITE GOVERNANCE GUIDE

Website Ownership & Handover Checklist for Indian Businesses

A new website is only truly complete when your team can operate, protect and improve it without being locked out of critical assets.

Start with the assets the business must own

Confirm that the domain, hosting account, CMS administrator account, source files, analytics properties, tag manager container, Search Console property, paid-media pixels and social integrations are registered to or fully accessible by the business. Record the account owner, recovery email, renewal date and administrator contact for each item.

The handover checklist

• Domain registrar access, renewal contact and DNS record inventory.
• Hosting, SSL, backups, staging environment and escalation contact.
• CMS administrator roles, source-code repository or final source archive, and design files.
• Google Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager, conversion actions and consent settings.
• Form recipients, CRM or email routing, WhatsApp links and spam-protection settings.
• Theme, plugin, font, image and stock-asset licences with renewal responsibilities.
• A redirect map, XML sitemap, robots.txt review and launch or migration notes.

Why ownership affects marketing performance

Missing access can delay technical SEO fixes, campaign tracking, speed improvements and urgent website recovery. A clear handover protects continuity when internal people, vendors or platforms change.

Use this alongside our website design and development service, the website audit guide, and the GIER Skills website and organic-growth case study.

Before you sign off

Test the main enquiry route, mobile pages, analytics events, backups and recovery access. Keep the checklist in an internal system that survives a vendor or staff change.