With my recent trials and tribulations with DirectNIC and my now exodus to NameSilo I’ve been asked a couple of times of how difficult a domain transfer is and what it entails. Before I discuss the steps to transfer a domain, I’d like to note that I will be posting about my adventures with a handful of domain registrars as I tried to find the “perfect” one for me. So without further ado, here’s what I went through this morning to transfer a domain from Epik.com to NameSilo.com. Please keep in mind that I actually don’t have any gripes about Epik, they just happened to be the company that brokered a recent domain purchase I made and I wanted to migrate the domain to the company I do business with (which up until this transfer was DirectNIC 😉
- I actually had to wait for a bit before I could do this transfer as I found out a domain must be at least 60 days past it’s initial registration or last renewal. There are some other gotcha’s depending on when the domain is up for renewal and NameSilo recommended turning off any WHOIS privacy guard as well.
- I started by initiating a transfer with Epik that revealed the authorization code for the domain (on screen and via email). Over on NameSilo I started a transfer and provided the domain and authorization code.
- I was taken to a checkout because domain transfers aren’t free, but when you do them your expiration is pushed out 12 months, so it’s more like you’re paying for a renewal than the transfer itself.
- At this point the domain transfer process has been initiated and NameSilo starts by looking up the administrative contact for the domain (hence why you should turn off any WHOIS privacy) and sends an email to that contact to confirm the transfer.
- Confirmation email arrived and I clicked the link to confirm. This took me to a page that asked me if I wanted to confirm and outlined the terms of the transfer. Once confirmed, another email is shot out to the person that requested the transfer (which was still me).
- The email arrived regarding the transfer to let me know it was accepted along with the IP address of the person that accepted it. The email adviced that it may take up to 5 or 6 days for the transfer to be accepted by the registry but that some registrars allow you to expedite this process.
- At first I thought that Epik didn’t offer this expedite option via their site. I went ahead and attempted to start the transfer again and low and behold the expedite link was revealed. I clicked that and the domain disappeared from my Epik account.
- About 35 minutes after the domain transfer was initiated the domain was showing as being registered with NameSilo, the expiration was pushed out a year but the additional contact information was showing that it was an “unknown domain name”.
- Another 5 minutes had passed and I received an email to let me know that the domain had successfully be transferred and added to my account. So it took about 45 minutes to transfer the domain, most of which was time I spent waiting and didn’t have to do anything.
Not much to it, pretty painless. I’ve since started to transfer for some domains from DirectNIC to NameSilo and wasn’t able to expedite the transfer in the same way that I did with Epik. I opened a support ticket but they seem to be on a 48 hour turn around as of late and I’m not even sure if they will be able to expedite it for it.
Unfortunately Epik doesn’t have an affiliate program, else I’d link to them, NameSilo does though and they even allow you to set up coupon codes. If you’re interested in transferring a domain or even registered a new domain with NameSilo and feel free to use coupon JOSHDOMTRANS for a buck off!
