A few months ago, we posted a great article on transferring domains from Network Solutions to Rackwire, but that did not cover everything you should know about domain transfers in general. We do numerous domain transfers into our systems each and every day, but we often run into issues and have to answer a lot of questions for our customers. Transferring a domain is multi-step process and there are a few things that can go wrong along the way. Understanding all the steps and making sure you address the critical items will help to ensure that your domain transfer goes as smooth as possible.
- Before you get started with the transfer, the most important step that must be completed is to make sure that your domain is not locked. You should be able to easily tell this within the administration tool of your current registrar or service provider. If locked, you should make sure to unlock it.
- Once unlocked, you will want to take a look at who the administrative contact is for the domain. This will have a name and email address. It is critical that you will have access to this mailbox or be able to contact the person who does. There is a later step that needs to access a verification email, and that email will ONLY go to the person who is the admin contact. If you do not have access to this mailbox in any way, then you will want to change the admin contact on the domain through your current provider. Just be aware, some registrars will lock the domain and prevent transfers for as much as 60 days after contact info is changed. It is always best to not have to do this step, if you don’t have to, but sometimes you have no choice.
- With this first two steps complete, you are now ready to being the transfer. To get started, you need a transfer code, often called an EPP code, or authorization code. Somewhere in your current provider there should be a link or button to allow you to transfer the domain and generate an authorization code. Click on that, and you should get back the code.
- With the EPP code in hand, you can go to our site and visit the Domain Transfer page, where you enter in your domain information and click the button to check the availability for transfer. If it is a valid domain that can be transfered, you will get a button to add it to your cart, if not, it will indicate it is unavailable, meaning it is a new domain and you should register it, not transfer it.
- After you add the domain to your cart, the next screen will prompt you for your EPP code. Enter in the code you obtained from your current provider and click the button at the bottom to update the cart. The nameservers can either be left as our nameservers or changed to any nameserver you would like to use.
- You then can continue on, checkout and pay for the domain transfer, and you are nearly complete. There is just one more step that needs your interaction.
- After the transfer is paid for, our system will automatically submit the transfer request to our Registrar partner, eNom. eNom starts the transfer by contacting the domain’s current registrar and looking up the admin contact that we mentioned above and getting their email address. eNom then sends a transfer approval email to that email address.
- That email will be coming from the address info@transfer-approval.com, it is critical that your spam filters are not blocking that address and domain. You typically should receive that email within a few hours of starting the transfer process, and definitely within a day or so. If you do not, double check your spam folders. If you do not see it anywhere, please contact us and we can resend that email. Remember that it is critical you have access to or change the admin contact email address for the domain. We cannot send the verification email to any address we want, it can only go to that admin contact.
- Once you do finally receive that email, there will be a link in it to approve the transfer. You MUST click this link, and submit the form on the web page that comes up with your approval of the transfer. If you do not do this step, your domain will not transfer to us and we will have to re-initiate the process.
- After you click this link, your job is done. We will get your response, and eNom then contacts the current registrar to continue the transfer process. For some providers this can all take place in as a little as a day, for others, this can take as many as 2, 3, or even 4 days, possibly longer, but that is rare. Once complete, we get notified, and will let you know your transfer process is completed. You can then use your domain with our hosting services however you desire.
I hope this article has been helpful and makes your domain transfers as easy as possible in the future. If you ever have any difficulties, you can always reach us at Support.
