Can You Transfer Your Domain Name To Another Host

Manage Your Data Use Consent Preferences

After you complete your domain transfer, you’ll receive an email with the subject-line Control how your data is shared. The email contains a link that brings you to Tucows Inc’s Data Use Consent Settings. Tucows is the parent company of OpenSRS, the service that Shopify uses to resell domains to merchants. Giving consent is optional, and you can withdraw it at any time.

Repairing Site Navigation Errors And Missing Links

As you transfer your sites assets from the previous hosting environment, it is possible for assets, such as graphics to be misplaced or for certain files to be left behind. If this happens, your visitors are likely to experience 404 errors. Keep an eye on the 404 log during and after the switch this log will alert you of any non-working links or assets that you need to remedy to restore your site to being fully functional.

In most cases, you can make use of .htaccess redirectMatch and redirect to point old file locations to new ones. The following are some sample codes you can make use of.

Define your 404 page

To minimize the damage cause by broken links where moved.html is the page you wish to show your visitors when there’s a 404 error.

ErrorDocument 404 /moved.html

Transferring a page to a new location

Redirect 301 /previous-page.html http://www.example.com/new-page.html

Transferring entire directory to a new location

redirectMatch 301 ^/category/?$ http://www.example.net/new-category/

Redirecting dynamic pages to a new location

And, just in case you change your site structure at the new host

RewriteEngine onRewriteCond % ^id=13$RewriteRule ^/page.php$ http://www.mywebsite.com/newname.htm? 

A Good Web Host = Better Sleep At Night

When I switched to InMotion Hosting years ago the tech support was so helpful and switched my site over safely and soundly while I slept. I awoke up to website that functioned quickly and reliably without a single glitch in service.

If you dont feel that level of comfort, or are bothered about negative reports youve seen on your web host, it may be time for a change.

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Find A Host That Will Help You Migrate

Why struggle through all the work of moving a website to a new domain name if you can find a trustworthy organization full of experts who will do it for you? Sure, you may like your current hosting provider and are really looking to just switch domains but when was the last time you compared hosts prices, features, and performance?

Before you register your new domain name, take a look around the hosting marketplace. Moving a website can be a tedious process that doesnt come around often, so now is the perfect opportunity to take stock of your online presence and make improvements anywhere you can.

Look at this move as a chance to do some spring cleaning. In addition to updating that old WordPress installation or finally configuring your free SSL certificate, you should look into other performance and security upgrades that may have become available since you originally started your site. Look for hosts with high-performance solid-state drive storage, for example, or free Cloudflare content delivery network integration.

Purchase A New Web Host

You need a new web host in place before you can initiate a host migration.

There are a variety of hosting solutions out there, each with its own configuration and offer. You will need to evaluate and compare which is right for you based on a number of factors, such as cost, required space, and server configuration, to name a few.

Also ideally you should inform your visitors and/or clients that you are moving to a new web host, along with information about the hours that you are making the switch. It’a good PR practice to do periodically status updates on social media networks to keep your clients informed. Plus, consider asking your users not to visit your website during migration to minimize system load and prevent additional customer service headaches.

Tips:

• Make use of Steve’s Hosting Comparison Tool at WHTop.com.

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Let Google Know About Your New Address

OK. Youve moved and unpacked all your stuff, have set up mail forwarding, are living in the new site full time, and are ready to turn in the keys to the old place. You probably even want to throw a housewarming party to let the world know about your new digs.

Assuming youre already using Google Analytics and Google Search Console , you can use the search engines helpful change of address tool to notify the company of the change. Open up your old domains account and follow the steps, including confirming 301 redirects and verification methods.

Google Webmaster Tools provides tools for notifying the search engine of your new domain name and sitemap.

Youll also want to create and upload a new XML sitemap into Googles Webmaster Tools. Yes, that sounds complicated, technical, and time-consuming but we promise its not too bad. Sitemaps, which are basically a table of contents, make it easy for crawlers to see whats on your website and when it was last updated, and index it for search results. WordPress users can unsurprisingly use a plugin to generate a sitemap, or there are several free tools that will create one for you.

How To Transfer Your Domain To Another Registrar

Pro Tip: Once in a while, a legitimate email goes to your spam folder instead of your inbox. We recommend you check your spam folder if the Auth-Code has been sent there by mistake.

Recommended Reading: Transfer Wix Domain To Shopify

Check Your Domain’s Eligibility For Transfer

You can check whether your domain is eligible for transfer from your Shopify admin. Some domains, such as .ca and .co.uk domains, aren’t eligible for transfer.

Steps:

If the domain isn’t eligible for transfer, then a banner states that your domain extension isn’t currently supported. Instead, you can connect your third-party domain to Shopify.

B Redirecting Just The Emails

In this case, youre only getting a new provider for your email while leaving your website and everything else with the current web host.

To do this, were going to use whats called your domains MX records. From a users point of view, an MX record is a simple note that specifies the address of the mail server youre using.

Just like with nameservers, setting MX records works differently with each web host and domain registrar.

First, go to your new email hosting provider and find out what their MX addresses are. The fastest way to get this info is to reach out to the support team of the host.

Once you have these values, youll need to set them with your domain registrar. Again, depending on which registrar youre using, you might find this setting in different places. The support trick works here as well. Simply reach out to the registrars support team and ask where to set the MX records for your domain.

For example, if you have your domain on GoDaddy, log in to your user panel, and click on DNS next to your domain name:

On the next page, click on ADD below the list of the current records.

From the dropdown, select MX and fill out the remaining fields accordingly based on the MX values given to you by the new hosting provider.

When you approve the changes, your domain will be redirected successfully.

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Verify That The Domain Name Is Eligible For Transfer

To make sure your domain name can be transferred, sign in to your current Registrar and check the following:

• The initial registration of the domain name was at least 60 days ago and the domain has been with your current Registrar for at least 60 days:

Per ICANN’s Policy on Transfer of Registrations between Registrars, domains that are less than 60 days old or were transferred between Registrars within the last 60 days cannot be transferred. Please wait at least 60 days before transferring.

• The domain name is not on hold with your current Registrar.

What To Do Before Transferring Your Domain

There are several blocks in place to protect your domain name ownership that can cause difficulty in transferring your domain to a new registrar. Before you transfer your domain to HostGator, you must ensure that the domain is ready to be transferred. Please refer to the instructions below for preparing a domain for transfer.

Pre-transfer checklist

The very first thing to do is check if your domain is eligible for transfer to HostGator or if you need help from Live Support to have it transferred. To know what domain extensions can be transferred via the front-of-site or what requires help from Live Support, please check out the article Transfer Domain Name Registrations to HostGator.

So once you’ve confirmed your domain’s eligibility, please do the following at your current registrar.

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Back Up Your Website Files

If you end up not having your hosting provider move your website for you, never fear. Were here to walk you through the process, and you should be able to accomplish it without much difficulty. Just in case, however, the first step is so important we recommend doing it twice.

Any time you mess with important parts of your website, youll want a recent backup on hand to restore your site in case something goes wrong. We recommend having two backups on hand: one for the actual transfer and one as a just in case. For those using a content management system like WordPress, be sure to get backups of both the database and the static files .

cPanels Backup Wizard, a standard part of most hosting plans, walks users through the process of saving a copy of their site.

Depending on how much of a control freak you are or how much you want to get involved, there are a few options for how to go about making a copy of your site. From easiest to hardest:

Once your websites files have been gathered and packed away, lets make sure the new home er, domain name is adequately prepared for the moving truck full of boxes to arrive.

Best WordPress Host With A Free Transfer

By and large, moving a WordPress website follows the same basic steps as migrating a site that doesnt use the popular content management system: download backups of your website, transfer your files, update the URLs everywhere, and voila. However, the platforms file structure and reliance on databases can make the move a bit more complicated.

According to the WordPress Codex, a comprehensive search and replace operation to update the domain name in your database can potentially cause issues with data serialization, links, and theme display. WordPress provides a variety of methods to avoid the problem, but some involve complex technical requirements such as database administration or command line interface familiarity. Our favorite WordPress host will take care of all that for you without any headaches:

See other top WordPress hosts »

Also Check: Shopify Transferring Domain

Fix Broken Links And Create 301 Redirects

The movers have left, your boxes are unpacked now its time to kick back and enjoy your new home, right? Nope! Your website should look like its all good to go, but there are still a few more tweaks to make before your new domain is ready to be shared with the world.

For starters, youll want to spend some time poking around your website and potentially the WordPress backend to make sure things are operating more or less as normal. Your layouts and settings should be the same, but goofy things can happen.

You also may have a handful of old, broken links on your site, so go to a free broken link checker like Dr. Link Check, enter your new domain name, and fix whatever problems are uncovered. Internally, all your links still point to your old domain. Fixing those manually can take forever, but WordPress users can use a plugin like Velvet Blues Update URLs just be extremely careful about typing in your domain names. Pay attention to http or https, www or not, trailing slashes, and the like.

Plugins or free online tools can quickly crawl your site and identify any broken links.

What Do I Need To Transfer To Domaincom

There are four things that need to happen to facilitate a successful transfer to Domain.com.

• Domains must be valid and already registered with another registrar
• The registered domain names must be registered for at least 60 days and in unlocked status
• Transfers will succeed only if the Admin Contact is up-to-date
• You must obtain an authorization code to transfer to Domain.com

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