AI search and working with a developer
What is Handover?
Handover is the transfer of everything needed to own and run the site: credentials, code, documentation and accounts. It is a deliverable rather than a courtesy, and its quality is the clearest indicator of whether you were built a site or rented one.
Also called: project handover · offboarding
What a real handover contains
- Every credential, transferred in writing through a secure channel
- Documentation of where the site is hosted, how it deploys, and what depends on what
- Repository access, with the deployment process written down rather than remembered
- A database backup and instructions to restore it
- A licence list for fonts, images and commercial plugins
- A named contact for the period immediately after
The test that matters
Could another developer take this over without calling the person who built it? If the honest answer is no, you have a dependency rather than an asset, regardless of how good the site looks.
When to agree it
In the quote, as a line item, before work starts. Requesting handover documentation at the end of a project is a negotiation; having it in the scope is an expectation.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. Who actually owns your website — a checklist you can verify today covers this properly — 3 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.