Use cases
None of these are rare edge cases. They happen not because anything went wrong technically — but because nobody documented who was responsible for what, before the moment it mattered.
Does any of this sound familiar?
A launch is blocked because DNS is still controlled by a previous agency not returning emails
A domain is about to expire and nobody is sure who holds the registrar account
A provider account is inaccessible. There is no backup admin. There never was.
A client leaves and a clean handoff depends on documentation that does not exist
A migration is underway and the hosting and DNS details are scattered across old emails
A new project kicks off and nobody knows who owns the SSL certificate or whether it auto-renews
Before a project starts
New client onboarding
You take on a new client and spend the first two weeks figuring out what you’ve inherited. Who registered the domain. Which DNS provider they’re on. Whether the hosting account belongs to the client or the last agency.
SiteGov runs a structured scan on day one. Discovery takes minutes, not weeks.
Rebuilds and redesigns
A new site is scoped. Before the timeline is set, someone needs to know who controls DNS, what platform the hosting is on, and who has the registrar login. Finding out mid-project adds weeks.
SiteGov surfaces who controls what before the project timeline is built, not after a cutover is blocked.
Annual infrastructure reviews
At each renewal cycle or annual check-in, you need a current picture of who controls what, what’s expiring, and what’s undocumented. Assembling this from memory and old threads is not a repeatable process.
SiteGov gives you a current, structured record to review and present. A deliverable clients can actually see.
When a project ships
Delayed go-lives
The site is built. The client is ready. The DNS is still managed by an agency that stopped returning emails six months ago. The registrar login went to someone’s personal Gmail. The project is not going live today.
SiteGov surfaces who controls DNS before the project starts, not after it stalls.
Migration blockers
Moving platforms means touching DNS, hosting, SSL, and sometimes the registrar. The site needs to move. The hosting details are in a Slack thread from 2021, the DNS login belongs to a contractor, and nobody’s sure if the domain auto-renews.
SiteGov keeps a current record of every provider so migrations start with a plan, not a search party.
Go-live day
The cutover window is open. The DNS needs to update. The record is wrong and nobody can log in to fix it. Every minute costs something. This is not the moment to discover the credentials are missing.
SiteGov means credentials are already documented, the admin is already identified, and the path is already clear.
When people leave
Team offboarding
Someone leaves. They were the primary contact on the registrar, the hosting account, and the DNS provider. None of it was documented. Now a critical provider account belongs to someone who left eighteen months ago — and nobody documented a backup admin.
SiteGov flags missing backup admins and credential gaps before the person walks out the door.
Client offboarding
The relationship ends. The client needs a clean transfer of every account and credential. Without documentation, that process takes weeks and leaves gaps on both sides. The incoming team inherits a tangle of accounts, personal logins, and extremely confident guesses.
With SiteGov, the record is already there. A clean handoff instead of a scavenger hunt.
Knowledge walking out the door
One person knew where everything was. That person is gone. The infrastructure knowledge — every provider, every admin contact, every credential location — was in their head and their inbox. Not documented anywhere the team can reach.
SiteGov is where that knowledge lives instead. Structured, current, and not dependent on any one person staying at the company.
Always-on risks
Missed renewals
The domain lapses. Or the SSL cert expires. Or the hosting plan quietly cancels because the billing email went to someone who left. These don’t announce themselves in advance. They happen on a Sunday morning.
SiteGov tracks expiry dates and flags who’s responsible for each renewal across your entire portfolio.
SSL surprises
The site goes red-padlock on a Friday afternoon. The cert expired. Nobody knew it wasn’t on auto-renew. Nobody knew who managed it. This is a predictable problem. It should never be a surprise.
SiteGov monitors SSL expiry and surfaces the asset, the issuer, and the governance record so you’re never the last to find out.
Lost admin access
The primary admin left eight months ago. The backup admin was never documented. Account recovery requires identity verification the client can’t pass. There is no second key because nobody required one.
SiteGov governance records require a named backup admin for every critical asset. There’s always a second key.
Hidden ownership risk
A critical account is listed under someone’s personal email. Nobody actually knows if MFA is enabled. Nobody documented a backup. Everything is fine — right up until it isn’t. The risk was there on day one. Nobody looked.
SiteGov surfaces former employee admins, unverified MFA, and undocumented credentials before they become your emergency.
The through-line
These aren’t technical failures. They’re access failures. Every single one of them was visible on day one.
Scan
SiteGov probes a domain and maps the registrar, DNS provider, hosting, SSL authority, and email platform from live data. No manual entry. No stale spreadsheets. What’s running is what you see.
Document
Your team adds who controls each asset: the primary admin, a backup admin, MFA status, credential location, and recovery documentation. One governance record per asset. Takes minutes once. Stays current.
Know
When a project depends on access — a launch, a migration, a handoff, a renewal — the information is already there. Not assembled under pressure. Already documented, already current.
For agencies
Clients rarely ask for this until the domain expires or the handoff goes wrong. Agencies that track it proactively are the ones clients call first and leave last.
Data Ownership
Governance records belong to the domain owner, not the agency that built them. If a client relationship ends, the records go with the client — like medical records. A doctor can maintain them, but they belong to the patient.
Situations every agency recognizes
“The DNS was still with the old agency. We couldn’t go live for nine days.”
“The domain lapsed because the renewal notice went to a Gmail account from 2019.”
“The contractor had the only credentials. We spent two weeks on account recovery.”
“We inherited the client with no documentation. It took a month to understand what we were managing.”
“The SSL cert expired on a Saturday. Nobody knew it wasn’t on auto-renew.”
Common questions
Both, but the friction is different. Agencies use SiteGov to maintain a live map across a client portfolio, catching gaps before a migration, a renewal, or an account change surfaces them. Internal teams use it to document who controls what across their own domains and subdomains, especially as vendor relationships and team members change. The underlying problem is the same either way.
Most migration delays come from access problems discovered mid-project: the client can’t find the registrar login, DNS is at a provider nobody has access to, or the SSL cert is managed by a developer who left. SiteGov maps all of that before the project starts. You walk into a migration knowing exactly what you’re working with, who needs to be involved, and where the gaps are — not discovering them once the project is already live.
Expiring SSL certificates. Domains approaching renewal without a documented owner. Missing backup admin contacts. Former employees still listed as primary admins. Unverified MFA on critical systems. DNS providers that changed without documentation. Credentials with no documented recovery path. These aren’t edge cases. They’re the things that actually block projects and cause incidents.
When you can’t move a client because you don’t have access to the systems that need to change, that’s lock-in — regardless of contract terms. SiteGov makes the full picture legible: every vendor relationship is documented, every access point recorded, every dependency visible. When a client wants to switch hosting, you know exactly what needs to change and who needs to do it. The map is the antidote to lock-in.
Get started
Add a domain and run your first scan. You might be surprised what turns up.
No credit card required. Five minutes to find out what nobody on your team actually knows.