# What happens to my website when I leave a managed platform? By [Josh Goldberg](/about/#josh). Published October 17, 2026. In most cases the website itself is gone the day the account closes, because it lives on the vendor's platform, not on hosting you own. Your domain and your email are usually yours, and they survive. A free DNS lookup, with no login, tells you which is which. A managed platform is a vendor that builds your site, hosts it on its own system and runs it for a monthly fee. In August 2026 we moved [Anderson Dock & Lift](/work/anderson-dock-and-lift/), a dock and lift contractor in Bradenton, Florida, off one. This is what we checked and what we would tell the next owner. ## What parts of my website are actually mine? A "website" is three things, and each one can belong to someone different. - **The domain name.** It is registered at a registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap. If the registrar account is in your name, the domain is yours. - **The site files.** The pages, images and code. On a managed platform these sit on the vendor's servers. They are not yours to take. - **The email.** Often Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, set up in the same DNS zone as the website. That is why owners worry that moving the site will break their mail. Around those three sit the accounts that hold your history: the Google Business Profile with your reviews, Search Console, Analytics and the phone number on the site. Each of those needs your name on it too. The owner, Pete Anderson, had registered his own domain years earlier. His email ran on Microsoft 365. The vendor had built and hosted the site. Its platform made city pages automatically and left thousands of blocks of placeholder text that were never filled in. He could not change his own phone number on it. ## How do I check what is mine? Look up your domain's DNS records. They are public, so you need no login and no help from the vendor. Google's free Dig tool in its Admin Toolbox will do it, and so will any other DNS lookup. Check three record types. **Nameservers (NS).** These say who runs your DNS. If they belong to your registrar, or to a DNS company where you hold the login, you control DNS. You can point the domain wherever you like without the vendor's help. If they belong to the vendor, the vendor runs your DNS. You can still leave, as long as the registrar account is yours. The move is just harder, and it goes better with the vendor's help (more on that below). Anderson's nameservers were his registrar's defaults. The vendor was reached by address records inside his zone. That one fact meant he could leave whenever he wanted. **Mail records (MX).** These say where your email is delivered. A Microsoft 365 mail record usually ends in mail.protection.outlook.com. A Google Workspace record reads smtp.google.com, or starts with aspmx on older accounts. If yours names Microsoft or Google, your mail does not depend on the website host. Moving the site means changing the address records, not the mail records. The mail keeps working. **Address records (A).** These point the domain at the web server. The www name often has its own record, a CNAME, that does the same job. On cutover day these are the only records that change. ## What else lives in my DNS? More than the website. A Microsoft 365 setup usually adds a text record that lists the servers allowed to send your mail. Microsoft's value starts with v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com. It adds a record your email program uses to set itself up. Many setups also have two DKIM records that let other mail servers check the signature on your outgoing mail. If you verified Search Console with a DNS record, that record lives here too. Google says to leave it in place to stay verified. **If the vendor runs your DNS,** every one of those records has to be copied to the new DNS host before the nameservers change. Miss the mail records and email stops. Some records sit at names you cannot guess from outside, so ask the vendor for a full export of the zone. **If Search Console was verified with a tag on the vendor's pages,** the tag goes when the pages go. Google keeps you verified only while it can still find the token. Add the DNS record before the move so nothing lapses on cutover day. ## What should I get from the vendor before I cancel? Do not cancel first. The old site should stay up until the new one is live and the redirects are tested. Before you tell the vendor you are leaving, get these in hand: - **Admin access to Search Console and Analytics,** if the vendor set them up. You want to be an owner, not a user. - **Owner access to your Google Business Profile.** If the vendor is listed as the owner, fix that before anything else. Your reviews are attached to it. - **The phone number.** Ask whether the number on your site is yours or a tracking number the vendor rents. If it is theirs, find out what happens to it when you leave. - **Your own photos and text.** Anything you supplied, saved to your own computer. - **A full zone export,** if the vendor runs your DNS. ## What does a clean move look like? - **Crawl the old site before it goes dark.** Every page Google has indexed needs a new home. Google says to map each old address to its new one and to use a permanent server-side redirect whenever possible. Do not point them all at the home page. Google says that might be treated as a soft 404. An indexed page that starts returning "not found" is removed from the index. - **Build on a preview address,** marked not to be indexed, so the owner reads every page before it goes live. Take that marker off at cutover. Left on, it keeps the new pages out of Google. - **Buy hosting in the owner's name,** with the owner's card. Not ours. - **Test every form** on the preview. Then test them again on the real domain. - **Cut over at a quiet hour.** We did Anderson's on a Sunday evening. Change the address records. Do not touch the mail records. Send and receive a test email before and after, and write both down. - **Check the redirects live.** Submit the new sitemap in Search Console and request indexing for the main pages. Google says a request does not guarantee a page will be indexed, so watch the reports. - **Keep the redirects.** Google's site move guide says to keep them as long as possible, generally at least a year. - **Read Search Console at thirty days.** Because the domain stays the same, there is no change of address to file with Google. That tool is for moving to a new domain or subdomain. When only the page addresses change inside a site, Google's answer is redirects and an updated sitemap. ## What does the owner have afterward? The domain, locked against transfer. The hosting account and the site admin. The Google Business Profile and Search Console. All in his name. If he stopped working with us tomorrow, nothing would need to be handed back. ## Where do I start? To find out which of these are yours today, the [GEO Audit](/geo-audit/) records it. It is $500, credited in full toward any package bought within 30 days. Or email your domain to [contact@geobros.ai](mailto:contact@geobros.ai) and we will tell you what the DNS says. If the site turns out to belong to the vendor, the way out is a [Full Rebuild](/full-rebuild/), from $10,000, on hosting in your name. **Sources.** Google Search Central, "Redirects and Google Search," [developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects). Google Search Central, "How to move a site," [developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes). Google crawling documentation, "How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers," [developers.google.com/crawling/docs/troubleshooting/http-status-codes](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/troubleshooting/http-status-codes). Google Search Central, "Block Search indexing with noindex," [developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/block-indexing](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/block-indexing). Search Console Help, "URL Inspection tool," [support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289). Search Console Help, "Change of Address tool," [support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9370220](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9370220). Search Console Help, "Verify your site ownership," [support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9008080](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9008080). Google Admin Toolbox, "Dig (DNS lookup)," [toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/dig](https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/dig/). Microsoft Learn, "Connect your domain by adding DNS records," [learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/get-help-with-domains/create-dns-records-at-any-dns-hosting-provider](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/get-help-with-domains/create-dns-records-at-any-dns-hosting-provider). Microsoft Learn, "How to set up a multifunction device or application to send email using Microsoft 365 or Office 365," appendix on finding the MX record, [learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/how-to-set-up-a-multifunction-device-or-application-to-send-email-using-microsoft-365-or-office-365](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/how-to-set-up-a-multifunction-device-or-application-to-send-email-using-microsoft-365-or-office-365). Google Workspace Admin Help, "Set up MX records for Google Workspace," [knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/domains/set-up-mx-records-for-google-workspace](https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/domains/set-up-mx-records-for-google-workspace).