What should I do if my marketing agency owns my website? Ask for an export first, negotiate a buyout second, rebuild on your own domain third — and in every case copy your content now, because that is the part you can take whatever the platform does.
Being on an agency's platform is not a trap exactly. It is a cost you will pay once, and paying it sooner is cheaper than paying it later.
- Published pricing — $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, on the site.
- Month to month. No contract is holding you anywhere.
- A former attorney of 17 years who filed 5,000+ cases works your account.
- You see your rankings move for 14 days before you are billed a dollar.
- Law firms only — no other industries, ever.
| Attorney Pro Marketing | Scorpion | FindLaw | Typical legal agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing published on the website | Yes — $2,500 / $3,500 / $4,500 per month | Not published | Not published | Rarely published |
| Contract term | Month to month, 30 days’ notice | Not published | Not published | Commonly 12 months |
| Who works on your account | A former attorney of 17 years, in every account | Assigned account team | Assigned account team | Account manager, often across industries |
| Your website is built on | Standard, portable code | Proprietary platform | FirmSite platform | Varies — ask before signing |
| See results before you are billed | Yes — 14 days, then you decide | No | No | No |
| Ad spend billed by Google directly to you | Yes, no markup | Ask | Ask | Often passes through the agency |
“Not published” means the figure does not appear on that company’s own website as of October 2026 — check for yourself before you sign anything, with them or with us.
Establish What They Actually Hold
“They own my website” covers several different situations with different remedies, so start by separating them. Five questions, each answerable in a day.
- Who is the registrant of the domain? Check yourself with a public WHOIS lookup. If the domain is yours, your position is far stronger than it feels.
- Is the site on a proprietary platform or on standard code? Standard code can be exported and moved. Proprietary usually cannot.
- Can they produce an export of the files? The practical test, and the answer to this question is the answer to most of the issue.
- Is the content assigned to me or licensed? Licensed content comes down when you leave. This is in the agreement, usually in the intellectual property clause.
- Who holds the Google Business Profile and the ad account? Separate from the website entirely, and often held differently.
The common case is that the domain is yours and the site is not. That is the manageable version, because the thing with the accumulated history — your domain — is already in your hands.
Four Options in Order
Option 1: request a full export. Ask in writing for the site files, all page content, and the image library. Some platforms can produce a static export even when the site is not designed to be portable. Frame it as a backup request, and ask while you are still a client.
Option 2: negotiate a buyout or licence transfer. Occasionally there is a figure. It is worth asking what it is, because a one-time payment to keep a site that ranks can be cheaper than a rebuild plus the ranking risk. Get any transfer of the content in writing, assigned rather than licensed.
Option 3: rebuild on your own domain. The usual answer. You keep the domain and its history, rebuild the pages, and preserve the URL structure wherever possible so that most of your accumulated position carries over. The rankings live with the domain and the content, both of which you can keep.
Option 4: new domain. Last resort, and only if the domain itself is held by the agency and cannot be recovered. This is a genuine reset, and it is why the domain question comes first.
Copy the Content Today
Whatever you decide, do this this week, because access can change and the content is the part that makes pages rank.
- Save every page's text into a document, one page per section, with the URL at the top. Copy and paste is sufficient; this does not need to be elegant.
- Save the images — particularly real photographs of your office and attorneys, which are expensive to reproduce.
- Save the page titles and meta descriptions. Visible in the page source, and they matter for the rebuild.
- Crawl and save the URL list. This is the redirect map's left-hand column and you want it in your own hands.
- Export Analytics and Search Console data, which tells you which pages actually produce traffic and therefore which ones must survive the rebuild.
If the content turns out to be licensed rather than assigned, having a copy does not give you the right to republish it — but it does let you see exactly what the pages said, which makes rewriting them substantially faster.
Rebuilding Without Losing Rankings
Three things do most of the work here.
Keep the URL structure. If the new site can use the same paths, the migration risk largely disappears, because nothing needs redirecting.
If paths must change, build the redirect map first. Every old URL mapped to its equivalent new page, as permanent 301 redirects, verified after launch. Not everything pointed at the homepage, which Google largely treats as a soft 404.
Keep the pages that produce. Your Search Console data tells you which URLs earn impressions and clicks. Those survive the rebuild intact, whatever the redesign does elsewhere. Our page on switching agencies without losing rankings sets out the full checklist.
Preventing It Next Time
One question, asked before signing, prevents this entire page: “Can you send me an export of the site files today?” The ability to produce them is the whole test, and it costs nothing to ask.
Attorney Pro Marketing builds on standard, portable code with the domain, hosting, website files and content all registered in your firm's name, and the content assigned to you, not licensed. The Google Ads account and Google Business Profile are in your name as well. If you leave, the site keeps working — there is nothing to export, buy back or migrate, because none of it was ever held on our side.
The site is built and launched within three days with no setup fee, which matters for a firm rebuilding under time pressure. Published pricing at $2,500, $3,500 and $4,500 a month, month to month with 30 days' notice and no cancellation fee.
See it before you pay for it.
We snapshot your rankings on day 0, build and launch your site within three days, and show you the movement on day 14. If it has not moved enough to be worth continuing, you owe nothing for that period and you keep the Google Business Profile work.
Related Questions
Four options in order: request a full export in writing, since some platforms can produce a static one; negotiate a buyout or licence transfer and get any content assigned rather than licensed; rebuild on your own domain while preserving URL structure; or, only if the domain itself is unrecoverable, start on a new domain.
Not if the domain is yours, which is the common case. Rankings attach to the domain and the content, both of which you can usually keep. Rebuild on the same domain, preserve the URL structure where possible, and the accumulated position largely carries over.
Every page's text with its URL, the images — especially real photographs of your office and attorneys — the page titles and meta descriptions from the source, a crawled list of all URLs, and your Analytics and Search Console exports, which tell you which pages actually produce and therefore must survive a rebuild.
Ask one question before signing: can you send me an export of the site files today? The ability to produce them is the entire test. Then confirm in writing, asset by asset, that the domain, site files, content, ad account and Google Business Profile will be in your firm's name, with content assigned rather than licensed.