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Agency-managed / subscription

Moving your website off Thryv

Thryv, formerly the Yellow Pages business, sells websites to local businesses as part of a broader marketing package. The website terms are worth reading closely, because they are specific about what is yours and what is not.

Scan My Website FreeTalk it through: (520) 539-2823

Where you actually stand

Thryv bundles a website with CRM, marketing and listings tools. If you use the whole suite and it works for you, this page may not be for you. But a lot of businesses signed up for the package and mainly ended up with a website they are paying monthly for.

Thryv’s Professional Website terms state that if they create or supply content for your website or design your website, that content and the composition and design of the products they create are their sole and exclusive property. The build-it-yourself website terms carry near-identical language.

On termination, the terms say Thryv agrees to release your client content and your website’s URL — with a specific and important condition attached, which is that the URL is released if it was your domain originally.

The design is theirs. Your URL comes back only if it was yours to begin with.

We are quoting rather than paraphrasing here, because the exact wording carries the meaning and the conditional clause is the part that matters.

That last clause deserves attention. If Thryv registered the domain on your behalf when you signed up, rather than you bringing an existing domain, the release provision reads differently. If you are not certain which applies to you, check the WHOIS registrant record for your domain — it takes half a minute and it is worth knowing either way.

“If we create or supply any content for your Website or design your Website, such content and the composition and design of the products we create are our sole and exclusive property.”
Thryv Professional Website Terms
“Upon termination, we agree to release Client Content and your Website’s URL if it was your domain originally but will not release or sublicense to you any content owned or licensed from third parties by us.”
Thryv Professional Website Terms

What this costs you day to day

The design is explicitly not yours

Thryv’s terms state the composition and design of the website they create is their sole and exclusive property. Your own content is excluded from that, but the site around it is not.

The URL release is conditional

The terms release your website’s URL "if it was your domain originally." Worth establishing which category you are in before you need to know.

The website is tied to the bundle

Leaving Thryv means leaving the website too. If you like their CRM but want a better site, that is not straightforwardly available to you.

Third-party content does not transfer

Anything Thryv licensed from third parties — stock photography, for instance — will not be released or sublicensed to you.

Templated output

These are efficient template builds. They are fine, and they look like what they are, and your competitors on the same product look similar.

How the rebuild works

Six steps, and your involvement is deliberately minimal. We handle the technical side, bring you recommendations, and come to you when a decision or an approval is genuinely needed. You review the finished site before it goes live.

  1. 1

    We audit your current website

    We review your existing site — pages, content, SEO, functionality and structure. We identify what should be improved, updated or dropped, rather than copying over things that were never working.

  2. 2

    We rebuild the site in Next.js

    Your branding and content carry over, but the site is rebuilt from the ground up in Next.js. That removes the database and plugin dependencies behind most performance, security and maintenance problems.

    For Thryv specifically: We build from your live site, so nothing depends on Thryv’s cooperation. We will also flag anything on your current site that looks like licensed stock imagery, since Thryv’s terms are clear that third-party licensed content does not come with you — and we will replace it properly rather than copying it across.

  3. 3

    We improve it while we rebuild it

    This is the part people underestimate. We are not handing you a newer version of the same website. We look for real gains in navigation, page layout, calls to action, mobile experience, content and SEO.

  4. 4

    We preserve your SEO

    Existing URLs, page titles, metadata and redirects are all accounted for in the transition. The goal is to move platforms without giving up the search visibility you have already built.

  5. 5

    We test everything before it goes live

    Desktop and mobile, every form, every piece of functionality, all content reviewed — checked and working before we touch anything in production.

  6. 6

    We launch

    Once you approve it, we move the new site into production. From your side the transition should be uneventful, and your visitors should never see an interruption.

What comes with you

  • Your own content — text, photos, anything you supplied
  • Business information, hours and service details
  • Your branding, rebuilt and modernised
  • Existing URLs, preserved or 301 redirected
  • Google Business Profile linkage, updated cleanly
  • Licensed imagery replaced with images you own outright

You own what we build. In writing.

Every rebuild is delivered with a Certificate of Ownership and IP Assignment: a signed document assigning you the copyright in the site code and the content we produce for you, and recording the transfer of the repository, the domain and the hosting account into your name. You are not licensing your website from us. If you ever leave, you take the whole thing with you — the code, the content, the domain, the repository and the deployment history.

  • Full copyright assignment in the site code and the content we write for you.
  • The Git repository transferred to an account you control, with its full history.
  • The domain in your name, at a registrar of your choosing.
  • Hosting in your own Vercel account if you want it there — we can manage it, but ownership sits with you.
  • No proprietary page builder, no template licence, and nothing that stops working if you stop paying us.
Read what the certificate covers

Questions people ask about leaving Thryv

Do I own my Thryv website?
Your own content, yes. The website design, according to Thryv’s Professional Website terms, is "our sole and exclusive property." Their build-it-yourself terms say much the same. So the words and photos you provided are yours; the site built around them is theirs.
Will I get my domain back?
Thryv’s terms say they will release your website’s URL on termination "if it was your domain originally." If you brought an existing domain, that reads well for you. If Thryv registered it for you, check the WHOIS registrant record and raise it with them directly. We can help you work out where you stand.
Can I keep using Thryv’s CRM and move just the website?
Worth asking Thryv directly, since it depends on your specific agreement. We build websites that integrate with whatever CRM you want to keep — so from our side it is entirely workable.
What about the photos on my current site?
If you supplied them, they are yours. If Thryv licensed them from a stock provider, their terms are explicit that third-party licensed content will not be released or sublicensed to you. We will identify those and replace them with imagery you own — which is the right outcome regardless.

Sources

Every claim made about Thryv on this page comes from Thryv’s own published documentation. Read them yourself. We would rather you did.

Also worth reading

Start by finding out where you actually are

The free scan tells you what your site is built on, what is slowing it down, what search engines and AI answer engines can currently read, and roughly what a rebuild would cost.

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