The pain of transfering domains

After reading about Go Daddy’s CEO Bob Parsons killing an elephant and Namecheap’s offer as a response to what Parson’s killing a Elephant and posting the video, I decided to consider changing domain registar.

Well, that was back in the end of march and because it seem like a hassle I just put it my backlog, until recently. However, I like to finish stuff that I start. Plus I have grown tired of Go Daddy’s interface, it reminded me bloatware. So, finally I decided to pull the trigger. Well the triggered that I pulled was for a marathon that I will had to run. I have more than 10 domains, but I decided to just start with non critical and that is around 8.

Oh boy, was I right that this was a hassle, and here is how it went.

First, you have to go to your GoDaddy account -> domain manager and unlock your domains. There is no bulk operation, in addition to being a “batch” operation, since it makes the request and you have to wait “some minutes” (1-2 minutes) for your account to update.

Second you have to obtain your EPP code (or Extensible Provisioning Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Provisioning_Protocol), which is a code you have to provide to your new domain registrar. This is needed to protect you from Domain hijacking . To get that code you have to request it one by one and it will be sent by email.

Then you have to wait for it to come.

After you have your codes, you have to got to you new name register, in the case of Namecheap, I could write all the domains at once. This is the only part done by bulk.

Once registered and initiated the process you have to start one by one entering the EPP code.

Then your request is processed.

Is time to start your compiler

After a hour or so, you will receive a email confirming your order.  After that you will receive an email to confirm your request. To do this you need to click on a link, which will take you to a web page. In this page, you will have to click a button to confirm your transfer.

Yeap, there is a lot of clicking here.

So, I did it for eight domains, this is eight emails to open, eight links to click and eight buttons to confirm the transfer. Add to this going back to the email client, selecting another email and repeating the process. Ahh… and don’t forget the other clicks (around 5 per domain) I had to do in Go Daddy to unlock and request the EPP code, for every single domain.

Five days later I received eight emails from Namecheap confirming that transfer was completed. Well that is just the transfer, then you have to Tell Namecheap to transfer the DNS control to Namecheap nameserver (in case you had them with Go Daddy).

The only advantage of this, is that domain Hijacking might be prevented. However I still think that in this age, if somebody wanted to get something from you, they will. At the end is if just to prevent churn and doesn’t show confidence in the service where is easy to get in and easy to get out. Few companies do that, is a common practice to make it hard.

Then, again we can change this thanks to choice… the hard part is enforcing it.