There are two means of ‘transferring’ a domain name; first is between domain name registrars (GoDaddy, Enom, Register.com, Network Solutions, and many others) and the second, is between direct account holders within the same registrar, often called a “push”.  This article will discuss the transfer between registrars.

One scenario of choosing a registrar to register your new domain name may be due to price and there may be other services from your target registrar that are not featured here that might entice you to transfer to another registrar besides where the domain currently resides.

For those that have multiple domains, perhaps you would like to simply consolidate all with one registrar, to assist in managing the domains.  Since most registrars offer a management interface or account manager to make changes, this could be a significant cost savings as a volume customer will receive certain benefits, such as reduced costs, etc.  In all, the choice of which registrar you use is 100% up to you.

Steps in Transferring Domain Names to a New Registrar

The following is a rough guide for you in transferring a domain from one registrar to another.

1. Start by verifying your domain status, updating records such as the information found on any whois search site (http://www.whois.net/).  Pay particular attention to the email address on the domain account.

2. You will need a most likely need an authentication code from the existing registrar, to enter at the new registrar telling them that you have authorization from the current owner to initiate a transfer

3. Make certain your domain is not ‘locked’

4. Next, you will want to contact the registrar you want to transfer your domain to, provide your authentication code and request the services desired

5. Upon successful connection, your current registrar will contact the “administrative contact” email address on the domain to confirm that you initiated the transfer request. Depending on the current registrar and where you are transferring it to, there may be a few additional steps you have to take in order to make the transfer confirmation.  This will allow the current registrar to release the domain to the your newly chosen registrar. Note that this process may not, and probably will not, be immediate; domain transfers can take up to two full weeks (on average about 5-7 days), so be sure to initiate a transfer with plenty of time before the expiration date on a domain name registration, otherwise you may find your domain name in limbo.

6. Upon notice from your new registrar that the transfer is complete, check the administrative data to make certain the domain server, DNS, and all other contact information (especially the admin contact email address) is correct.

Transferring a domain name may have some costs involved.  These costs may vary depending on the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain name and other factors.

The 60-Day Rule

ICANN Transfer Restriction: If any domain name was acquired or renewed within the past 60 days, it is not available for transfer until the 61st day per ICANN transfer restrictions. If this is the case, payment in full will still be due as agreed but we will change the “WHOIS” information from our ownership, contact and nameserver information to your information after payment in full. You will then have ownership and nameserver control so you can host a web site, park the domain name or forward the domain to an existing web site right away. You can then complete the transfer to your registrar of choice after the 60 days have elapsed. We will provide you with the date of the 61st day from acquisition or renewal.

Here are a few specific registrar links discussing this process:

GoDaddy: http://help.godaddy.com/article/3560 – Transferring Domains to Another Registrar

eNom: http://www.enom.com/terms/agreement.asp – in the seventh paragraph labeled TRANSFERS

NameCheap: http://namecheap.simplekb.com/kb.show?show=article&articleid=263&categoryid=8 – FAQ

Network Solutions: https://www.networksolutions.com/domain-transfer/index.jsp;jsessionid=5dade5a2a30be00f132c6d27deea:9jF4

Domain for sale

Can I buy this domain?

I was fortunate enough to help a new customer last week who had no idea how to acquire and transfer a domain name.  Her response to one of our standard services just made my day and I have been meaning to share it with you since then and finally had time to get this posted.

Kate Murray, of KateMurrayAgency.com, is a State Farm agent in Brooklyn, New York who was interested in a domain that we acquired at auction a few weeks ago, specifically, KateMurray.com.

Why did we have this domain?

This domain was interesting to us because of its search volume and natural search traffic that comes via the search engine keyword searches of “Kate Murray”.  There are 1,890 US searches a month for this exact search term, so we had initially thought of monetizing the site with Google Adwords/Adsense ads and referring visitors to those targeted ads.  Since traffic is the #1 most difficult thing in managing a successful website, those are numbers that interest us tremendously.

Exact keyword search term

Exact keyword search term domain names are very powerful given proper development.  Because the single most important challenge to building a successful website that does more than just look pretty, is getting traffic.  A few pages of relevant content and a clean website framework and the search engines will give bonus points to having an exact match domain name to match this powerful search term with 1,890 matches per month.  And don’t forget that those are US searches, not India or some foreign country that is irrelevant to her local business in New York.  If is very likely that they will reward this exact keyword search/domain name combination with a first place result, positioning Mrs. Murray nicely towards capturing those 1,890 searchers.

Top level positions

It is a proven fact, that top level position (especially above the fold, or the area on top before you have to scroll down) gain much more exposure than any lower positions for several reasons.

Just look at this example of a Google heat map that shows where visitors attention focuses:

Clearly, you can see that the main focus is on the top positions.

The value of a .COM and existing traffic

Most small business owners don’t understand the added value of a .com domain name.  I can’t tell you how many .Net owners will try to say that the extension is just as good as a .com, but I beg to differ.  Granted, there are some great .Net names, but in most cases the .Net owner is advertising for the .com guy.  Most retail searchers are trained to put in .com into the search bar, and many do it automatically.  If they hear or see a term and go back later to search at their computers, the odds are that they will type in .com over any other extension out there.  Many times this is called “type in” traffic and it can be very powerful free traffic in the right conditions.  Just image how many of those 1,890 searches a month that the users just type in “KateMurray.com” straight into the browser?  For this reason alone, we recommend and give instructions on how to “point” the new domain to the customers existing website, for specifically this reason.

Agreed price

We felt like Kate was a perfect match for this domain and decided to take an offer she made and move on to other projects that we have on the books (150+ developments at the moment).  After negotiating an agreeable term, our team then proceeded to inquire about her knowledge of this type of transaction so that we could give more instructions on the transfer process.

A matter of trust

As you can imagine, she is like most small business owners we have met over the years who know very little about these types of things concerning one of the most important aspects of their business, their basic website functions.   This type of work is usually left to someone that they have started with, and most of time that means several providers over a period of time.  Unfortunately, that does or does not mean that they have their best interests in mind or can offer all of the skills that are needed to maintain a proper web business from top to bottom.  We were honored to:

1. Set up her free account with GoDaddy that contained the information that was available to us in her business listing
2. Transfer the domain into that new account on her behalf.
3. Send the instructions to her to access the new account.
4. Verify the domain was in the account.
5. Change the password to take full ownership.

Once she had verified all of this information, we invoiced her and made just one more happy customer.

Here is what she had to say about us……

“Jeff,

I can’t thank you enough for pursuing this.  I appreciate you setting this all up as I really wouldn’t have had a clue.  I am going to keep your number in case I ever have questions about the internet/web pages.  If there is anything that I can ever do to return the favor please don’t hesitate to ask.  Again many thanks,

Regards,

Kate

Kate Murray , Agent”

Our customers are #1

Those kinds of testimonials just make our day!  It costs 6 times more to acquire a new customer, than to seek a referral from one that you already have.  In this economy, many businesses that relied on the scandalous “hit and run” approach of peak business times are steadily filing bankruptcy because they no longer can generate the leads that a great economy produces.  We try our best to teach our clients by example how to:

1. Improve their Customer Relationship Management skills
2. Solicit referrals from past customers who love their services
3. Under promise and over deliver for exceptional responses from all of their customers

If there is ever anything that we might do for you, or if you just want to chat about your current situation, feel free to call upon me personally.  I would love to help.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey McGee

President, My Internet Consultants

800-270-4125 Toll Free

469-844-5566 Skype

214-597-8428 Cell