How to move my Internet domain name to a different provider

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Different TLD (Top Level Domains, eg .uk, .com) have different methodologies to enable you to move your Internet domain name to a different registrar, so this is a guide rather that a step by step how-to on how to safely move your domain name.

Move DNS

We recommend moving DNS servers first as that is the best way of ensuring everything that relies on your domain name (primarily website and email) does not suffer any glitches. For the same reason we tend to recommend only making one change at a time, so we would not want to tray and change any services at this point either. DNS records can take some time to propagate. Every record has a TTL (Time To Live) value, usually in seconds, that indicates how long that record is cached for, so the larger the value, the better your domain will survive a DNS outage, but the slower it is to update around the world. Most people opt for a value of 86400, which is 24 hours. Another common value is 3600, or 1 hour.

Create new DNS records

The first step is to create a copy of your DNS (Domain Name Server) records. Hopefully you have access to the existing information, if not, you may be able request a hard copy from your existing provider. It may be possible to request a 'zone transfer', which in lists every record for your domain, via an import tool on your new DNS platform.

Change DNS Servers

Once you know that the new DNS servers are ready to serve information regarding your domain, then you request your existing provider to change the DNS entry in the WHOIS database to the new ones. We now need to wait for this change to propagate, which will depend on the TTL values.

Move Domain

  • UK (eg .co.uk,.org.uk)based domains use a system called IPS tags. All you have to do is to know the IPS Tag for the new provider, and ask the old provider to change theirs to the new one.
  • COM based domains often use a time-limited authorisation code which you request from the old provider, and give to the new provider which allows them to take over the domain on your behalf.

Some systems have a lock mechanism, so not only do you need a transfer code, but also that the domain is unlocked as well.

Change DNS Records

If you need to change any records in DNS, it is now safe to do so. The propagation of these changes is affected by the TTL (Time To Live), so if you are planning a significant change which is time critical, then ahead of time, change the TTL of those records to a much shorter time, allow that change time to propagate (as this first change will still be dependant on the old TTL), then when your time critical update is carried out, it should by this point be dependant on the new, shorter TTL.

Caveat

Some DNS servers have been known to ignore TTL records and use their own TTL values. Sometimes this is done it the are at the end of a long, slow connection, to save bandwidth. Nothing can be done about that unless you have some sort power of those who own the offending servers.

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