How to Change Your Website Design Company and Keep Everything You Own

By Semih Solakoğlu, Co-Founder, Evalon Digital Media. Updated 5 November 2026. We checked each step in this guide on how to change your website design company against the official .IE pages on that date.

Why order matters when you change your website design company

For many businesses, the website is where the money comes in. In 2025, 29% of Irish enterprises offered online ordering, reservations or booking on their website, according to the CSO. When a site goes offline, those bookings stop the same day.

In most cases, trouble during a move comes from one gap. The old company holds something you need, such as the domain, the hosting or a Google login. So the first job is to find out what you own today, and then to move each piece in the right order.

Step 1: Check who owns your domain

Your domain is your address online, like yourbusiness.ie. Whoever is listed as the holder controls it. That holder should be your business, with your own email as the contact.

To check, first log in to the account where you pay for the domain. Look for the name next to "registrant" or "holder". If you have never had a login, ask your current company for one today.

Sometimes the old company is listed as the holder. In that case, ask them in writing to move it to your business. For a .ie domain this is called a registrant transfer, and your registrar may charge a fee for it.

How to move a .ie domain to a new provider

1. Get your Authcode. Your current registrar can give it to you, or the .IE Registration Services Team can create one at registrations@weare.ie. The code itself is free from .IE.
2. Check your inbox. The code goes to the email contacts listed on the domain, which is one more reason to make sure those inboxes are yours.
3. Give the code to your new registrar. You pay them a transfer fee, and that fee also renews your domain for one year.

Step 2: Collect every login before you change website design company

Ask your current company for your own admin login to each account below. A shared login can be switched off at any time, so ask for accounts in your own name.

Next, log in to each one yourself. A login only counts once you have tested it.

Step 3: Keep a full backup in your own hands

A backup is a full copy of your website. It has two parts, the files and the database. The database holds your pages, posts, forms and settings.

Ask for both parts and, after that, save them to a drive your business controls. If anything breaks during the move, this copy brings your site back.

Step 4: Protect your Google rankings during the move

Google remembers each page by its web address. When the addresses stay the same, your rankings usually move with the site.

However, if a page gets a new address, set up a 301 redirect from the old one. A redirect sends visitors and Google straight to the new page. After that, check Search Console for errors every few days for the first two weeks.

Step 5: Move your email last

Your email is tied to your domain through settings called MX records. If someone changes the domain settings and skips these records, new emails can stop arriving.

For that reason, plan the email step on its own, on a quiet day. Once it is done, send a test email to and from every mailbox.

What a move looks like when the order goes wrong

When Sphynx Tattoo in Dublin came to us, the previous developer had deleted the site halfway through the project. The domains were disconnected, and the hosting sat on platforms nobody controlled. Because of this, Google could not find the studio.

So we rebuilt seven custom pages from scratch and handed every login to the studio. As a result, the studio owns 100% of its website today. You can read the full story in our Sphynx Tattoo case study.

Four questions to ask before you change website design company

Before you sign with anyone, ask these four questions. In general, good answers are short, clear and written into the agreement.

1. Who will be the registered holder of my domain? The answer should be your business.
2. Will I get my own admin login on launch day? Every account should be in your name.
3. Is the price fixed and written down before work starts? A written price protects both sides.
4. If I leave one day, what can I take with me? The right answer is everything.

At Evalon, the domain, hosting, website and logins are yours from day one. Every build has a fixed price in writing, and our web design service takes 2 to 10 weeks, depending on the size of the site. If your last company went quiet on you, our guide on web designers who disappear covers what good support should look like.

Common questions when you change website design company

Sources

• Information Society Statistics: Enterprises 2025, CSO
• Find or change your Registrar, .IE
• Frequently asked questions, .IE