Transferring Domains

For the last 3 days, I've been going through the process of transferring Wade's Automotive's domain name from Vistaprint to my possession and what an ordeal it is!! I have no issues with Vistaprint as a host, they've been great! But now that Wade's business has grown over the past year, I'd like to have more control over the dynamics of the site and have the flexibility to add some creativeness. In hindsight, it would have been more beneficial to just buy the domain name myself and use a web host. At the time that we created the website I didn't really know much and was just learning as I went along.

If you haven't gone through this process, you're indeed blessed & fortunate! If you might have to go through this process, it isn't as frightening as you may think.

First you'll need to contact Vistaprint and let them know you'd like to transfer or take ownership of your domain name.

• You can do this by calling them at 1.866.891.7213, and have your account number ready. Tell them that you want to transfer your domain, and they should direct you back to their site where you will have to pay a $19.95 charge for transferring the domain name.
• After you make the purchase, you will receive an important email from Vistaprint, and it will be entitled “Domain Transfer”. This email will have all the log in info you will need to transfer your domain.
• 2 things you need to do once you login to http://manage.opensrs.net – 
• Click on the “Domain Locking” tab on the menu bar, and make sure the site is unlocked
• Now click on the “Admin” tab on the menu bar, and change the existing email address to your email address, and click on the “Save Configuration” button at the bottom, this is very important to do.

I bought web hosting from HostGator, but you can purchase through any hosting you prefer. So, once I did the steps above, I called HostGator to initiate the transfer. From there, they sent me an email requesting permission to initiate the transfer. After receiving my request, they sent a second email with an invoice for $15.99 which is the fee to transfer the domain. So now, it's in HostGator's hands and they will do the completion of the transfer. It will take a couple of days, hopefully less.

Yes, you do have to pay for the transferring of domains and to be honest.. it's worth it. I didn't want to lose Wade's Google ranking, his site gets a lot of traffic so to redirect the traffic to another domain name and try to build up the Google ranking was just not worth the headache.. I will gladly pay the $35.94 just for peace of mind. But, in the future I know that I will purchase my own domain names and not go through a server like Vistaprint. (again, it's not because I wasn't happy with their service. They're great!).

I had to call HostGator about 3 times today because I was getting flustered and frustrated. Each time I called, they were so helpful and friendly, that was such a relief. My wait time on hold was less than 5 minutes which was awesome. They walked me through every step and emailed me link "helps". I'm so delighted knowing that this process is almost complete! Of course Wade has no clue what this has been like and when I try to explain it to him he gets this "glazed over" look on his face and just smiles & nods LOL.. at least he lets me vent. :)