How to Hand Off a Website When an Employee Leaves
The website usually belongs to whoever volunteered. When that person leaves, the knowledge leaves with them, and problems appear weeks later when a certificate does not renew or a form stops delivering. Do this before the last day, not after.
Inventory the accounts
Sit down together and list every account the website touches:
- Domain registrar
- DNS host, if different
- Web host and control panel
- Website admin (and every user account on it)
- Email provider and admin console
- Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager
- Google Business Profile, and who owns it
- Any paid plugin, theme, or SaaS license tied to the site
- Payment processor, if the site takes money
- The email address used for password resets on all of the above
Change ownership, not just passwords
Passwords are the easy part. Ownership is what matters: transfer the registrar account to a company email, add a second company owner to Google properties, and move license renewals onto a company card. An account still owned by a personal email is a future problem regardless of who knows the password.
Capture the undocumented knowledge
Ask three questions and write down the answers: What breaks most often and how do you fix it? What is the one thing on this site you would warn the next person about? Who do you call when you are stuck? Those answers are worth more than any documentation template.
Rotate and audit
After the handover, rotate shared passwords, remove their user accounts (do not delete and lose the content attribution, downgrade or reassign instead), revoke API tokens, and check for forwarding rules on their email. Then confirm the contact form still delivers, because notification addresses frequently point at the departing person.
Decide who owns it next
The most common failure is assigning the website to nobody and hoping. Either name an internal owner with time allocated, or hand it to a provider whose job it is. Whichever you pick, write it down. A site with no owner degrades quietly, and the bill arrives later.
