Domain Transfers

We're sorry if this page appears to be confusing but the process of transferring a domain, in or out, can appear daunting to the novice or domain owner who has little awareness of the processes involved. We'll try and explain things as clearly as we can and keep jargon to a minimum and hopefully dispel a few myths along the way.

Perhaps we had better start by explaining what a domain transfer is and why we would want to transfer it. First, let's clarify that a domain transfer does NOT mean transferring the ownership to someone else, that's called an 'ownership change'. What we're talking about is tranferring a domain from one registrar to another or in the case of a .co.uk domain from one ISP to another.

Transfers, whether in or out, are normally performed by a registrar on behalf of agents or the client who owns the domain. The method of transfer varies depending on whether the domain is country specific such as .co.uk or a top level domain .com, .org, .net, .biz for example.

Are transfers allway necessary when changing web host or web developer? The simple answer is no, but often domain owners like to keep their domain management under one roof and this is when domains are transferred from one agent/registrar to another. We don't intend to get into the complexities of domain management here, as it can be complex (diagrams can help) so we'll just outline the basic principles.

Transferring in a domain

Transfering out a domain