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Who Owns Your Website? You Do? Are You Sure?

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with My Assistant

I can't say it enough:

OWN YOUR DOMAIN!
OWN YOUR WEBSITE!

Most people don't realize that when you hire a company to build/design your website, THEY OWN IT.

Why have someone else register your domain and have them own it? What happens if you want to take over the control? Is it easy to do? You better make sure it is.

Why pay a company thousands of dollars to design a website for you only to find out down the road that the content is not yours? The US Copyright office has determined that web designers are considered ‘authors' and even if you collaborate with your designer on content that it is the designer's property! So if you want to switch providers down the road, you might lose your site. They can and will sue you for your content.

Make sure you get it in writing that after payment, ownership if your website is to be transferred to you. Do not sign a contract stating anything else. You paid the money; you keep the website. It's your company brand.

Show All Comments
Courtney Fontenot
Alpha Prosperity Management - Missouri City, TX
NAR Certified REPA, REW

Good information. Thanks for sharing.

Mar 27, 2009 03:17 AM
April Sullivan
Real Estate Virtual Assistant Chick - Murrieta, CA
Real Estate Virtual Assistant

GREAT information!

Mar 29, 2009 02:40 PM
Brendan Ferrara
Keller Williams Select Realtors® - Crofton, MD

That is definitely a good thing to point out. I'm sure not too many people realize that.

Apr 02, 2009 05:28 AM
Gabe LeBeau
eXp Realty - Seattle, WA

Thanks Renee, this is a great reminder and a problem I come across a lot with clients asking me to optimize their website. I just wrote a very related article on the topic earlier today called The Website Trap: Do You Lease or Own?.  Thanks!

Apr 17, 2009 11:42 AM
Scott Hoen
Carson City, NV
Carson City Clerk Recorder / Public Administrator

They probably own the code or site but make sure you really own and control your own domain -- the url, the website address -- I have heard horror stories about people trying to get back control of what is legally theirs.

Jun 15, 2009 12:20 PM
Damian Henry
Galtlinedesign - Yorba Linda, CA

There is a great article regarding building your own site. Galtlinedesign and Real Estate Websites

Owning a website is great if you are going to keep up with technology. Technology is moving at such a fast pace by the time you build your custom system, your already playing catch up. There are so many new API's being releases and trying to integrate these in to your site can be challenging and expensive. If I had to choose between a template site and a full custom system I would be all over the custom site. However many agents don't realize that there is another option. The option is called supported open source real estate. Galtlinedesign has built a custom property system. It is filled with tons of features in addition its built within the Joomla / Wordpress framework. Everything is owned by the agent except the property system. Whats nice about this option is that you get free feature updates from galtlinedesign, service updates for Joomla and Wordpress, thousands of free plug-ins for both joomla and wordpress, hosting, service and the ability to add custom functionality to the system. Its a supported open source relationship. Why build your own system when you get so much support out of one application.

Feb 02, 2010 09:15 AM
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