Domain name FAQ

How to Transfer a Domain Successfully!

This is a bit of a quagmire for domain owners. Since the domain business was opened up to competition, prices are all over the place. The highest-priced companies are naturally the ones who work the hardest to thwart your attempts to transfer your domain to a cheaper registrar.

Most registrars will reject transfers requested too close to the renewal date. What constitutes "too close" seems to be left to each registrar to decide. I have had domain transfers rejected by Network Solutions for domains expiring in 45 days, but 7-30 days seems to be the norm.

I know of many domain owners who lost their domains as a result of trying again and again to transfer to a cheaper registrar, until the domain expired unpaid and was immediately snapped up by a new owner. (Although many registrars give you a grace period, the length of time varies before they release it to a name-dump list which is monitored by many people.) There is no recourse in this scenario. If a registrar won't let you transfer a domain, your safest bet is to go ahead and pay the fee for another year and then transfer to your new registrar.

Watch out for shady offers such as Dotster's: "Transfer your domain names to Dotster for only $8.95 and we'll add a year to your current domain registration FREE!"

They only make it sound like you're getting something for free. You should never pay a transfer fee, and transferring always adds a year to the current registration. Sheesh! (And while $8.95 is a great price for a year's registration, you'll pay $14.95 to renew the domain next year. Watch out for introductory offers, as I mentioned in my Domain FAQ.)

Also be careful to avoid domain "slamming," which usually takes the guise of a solicitation by email, fax, or postal mail that looks so much like an official invoice, many people go ahead and pay it. They soon find out that they paid some other company instead of their own registrar, and in doing so, authorized a transfer to a new registrar by mistake. If this has happened to you, be sure to report it to the proper authorities such as the Postmaster or the FTC or FCC. But don't sweat it too much—you do still own the domain and you have the right to transfer it elsewhere. Of course, you may have to wait 60 days, since most registrars have this clause in their fine print.

If you want to transfer your domain, you'll need to go to your registrar's Web site to research the steps involved. Some, like 000Domains, don't have any information on the process at all. They're either trying to keep people in the dark, or they assume everyone knows that you ordinarily initiate the transfer with your new "gaining registrar" rather than the "losing registrar."

Each registrar has their own system for handling outbound transfers. Joker.com is one of the rare ones that, because they're in Germany, require you to open a "transfer window" first. As I said in the first page of my Domain FAQ, pay close attention to every detail of every email you receive during this process and follow the badly worded instructions to the letter.

First you'll receive a notice from Joker that this window has been asked for. You don't have to respond to that one. Next you'll get an email that requires you to hit reply and delete the line that says "No" to the transfer. No, I'm not kidding. Don't do like I did and send back the email with only the line that says "Yes." You must remove only the "No" line. And if you're using AOL, I believe you have to highlight the entire text in order to quote it in your reply (maybe that's changed with the new version, I don't know).

Once you've done that, you'll have to wait a few days to receive the email notification that this "window" has been opened. Luckily, it's a nice long 2-week window, but you should go ahead and initiate the transfer to your gaining registrar of choice as soon as possible.

All registrars require you to respond from the email account that's listed on the domain record. If you're not going to be able to do that (e.g., that email address is no longer valid), be sure to update the domain record with the new email address first.

The losing registrar will typically give you only 96 hours to confirm the transfer, and this includes weekends and holidays. Some, like DirectNIC, won't need your confirmation to approve the transfer; if they haven't heard from you within 5 days they assume it has your agreement. (If you use DirectNIC, be sure to set your security on High to safeguard your domains from hijacking.)

You'll usually be directed to go to the losing registrar's site and log in, so keep that password handy and make sure that all contacts listed on the domain record have it in case they are required to "vote" as well.

If Network Solutions is the losing registrar, you will need to be very alert. The email that they send you looks so much like a promotional ad for their services that you might accidentally delete it as spam.

Once you receive a notice from your new registrar that the transfer is completed, go to a Whois lookup such as InterNIC to check that it has indeed been transferred.

If you encounter problems with your registrar, go to the public forum at ICANN's site where you can register your complaint.

Good luck—you'll need it!

If you have a domain transfer horror story that people reading this page should know about, please let me know: .