There are many options available for a business or an individual to establish their presence online. Some people use Facebook pages or groups, while others use third-party publishing platforms. These options do not require you to have a domain of your own. But if you are serious about building an online portfolio, buying a domain name of your own is a smart move, as it allows you to have your very own website, and gives you more control over your brand and your content.
Everything about building a website starts with a great domain. To transfer a domain means to change the registrar with whom you originally had your domain name registration. It is a simple process, although it might sound technical or complicated to a non-techy person.
When a business or an individual chooses a domain, they normally opt for the perfect domain name, and many also go for the perfect registration date. However, circumstances might still turn out to be not in their favor, which is why they might want to transfer domain at a later date.
Why do People Transfer a Domain?
There are many reasons why a person or a company might want to transfer domain. For instance, maybe they are not pleased or satisfied with the quality of service that they’re receiving from their existing registrar. This works the same way as it does with any product or service that you purchase. If you are not satisfied with the service quality, or if the post-purchase support does not please you in the way you expected, you may want to change your service provider once your contract with the existing seller ends. In the case of a physical product, if you feel like its quality is not up to the mark, you might want to return it and request a refund if the seller’s refund or return policy allows you to do that.If you want to transfer your domain, you’d probably look for another domain registrar that’s easier to navigate, offers better customer support, and displays all star customer success. Some other qualities or features you might be looking for in the new registrar are discussed below.
1. The Provider
For any service that you buy or use, it’s important to consider and trust the source that it comes from, as that has a great impact on the features and quality of service that they offer. Some domain registrars offer all their services, such as web hosting and email accounts, with seamless integration. Others outsource one or more services to third-party providers. Those that outsource often have to compromise on the quality and speed because their integrations are clunky and not so good for your business. Therefore, knowing how your service provider operates is critical in making an informed decision before you transfer your domain.
2. Customer Support
During and after you transfer your domain, you might come across hiccups or technical issues that need to be resolved by the domain registrar. Sometimes even if you don’t face a technical error, you might have questions or queries that need to be answered. That’s why the quality of customer support is very important in choosing a suitable provider. You want to be sure that there is somebody available on the other side of the customer support line to respond to you and listen to your concerns whenever you need. Companies offering live-chat support are the best in this regard, because their customer service is not only easy to use, but is also available 24/7. For example, Strikingly is a website builder where you can also register your domain, and it has free live-chat customer support that would answer any queries you may have regarding its services, at any time of the day.
Image taken from Strikingly
3. User-friendliness
Most of all, when you’re looking to transfer your domain, you would want to go with a domain registrar that offers easy-to-use features. There’s already a lot of headache for someone who owns and runs a website. At least domain management should be simple to implement so that it doesn’t occupy much of your time or energy. The features should be user-friendly enough for you to understand and use, even if you are not a technical person.
4. Price
Different domain registrars have a different formula for coming up with their price packages. Most providers charge for one-year registration to transfer domain. Some offer all services in a single package that give you more bang for your buck as you get all the features you need at an overall discounted rate, but require a higher first-off payment during domain transfer. Some offer a base service at a smaller price and charge separately for the remaining features, so you pay a smaller amount during domain transfer but have to spend more in the long run. Sometimes, the price for all features for the first year is low but domain renewal from next year onwards is priced relatively high. This typically leaves customers unhappy and often makes them want to transfer domain to another registrar.
Image taken from Strikingly
If you are resentful towards your current registrar due to poor service quality, you might want to go ahead and transfer your domain.
How Long Does it Take to Transfer a Domain?
Surprisingly enough, it doesn’t take long to transfer a domain. It is best to complete the process in one sitting though, so it does require some patience. If you leave your computer and go do something else during domain transfer, the process will still be done from your side but it might cause security issues for your website.
Once you are done with everything you need to do at your end, the rest of the domain transfer process will be handled and completed at the service provider’s end in 5-7 working days under usual circumstances.
How Do You Transfer Domain to Strikingly?
The process to transfer domain to Strikingly is quite simple. You just need to be alert about a few things. During the process, Strikingly will send you a couple of confirmation emails. For example, you might receive an email with a link to cancel your transfer request. This email is sent just in case your transfer domain request was sent by mistake. So you need to keep a check and keep monitoring the process until it’s completed.
When domain transfer is going on, your DNS records will stop functioning and your domain will be offline. Any emails on the domain will probably be paused. It’s better if you check with the email service provider that there won’t be any issues or limitations on your email accounts due to the domain transfer.
After the first year, your domain will be renewed and, if your credit card details are saved in your Strikingly account, the amount will be charged on your card automatically. The first year will be added to the current expiry date of your domain.
So to transfer domain, you need to take these steps.
- Sign in into your existing domain provider account. You’d need to be aware of your existing provider’s transfer policies in order to avoid any technical issues.
- Then, unlock the domain and make it available for domain transfer.
- Disable the WHOIS privacy protection.
- Request for what’s called the EPP code (authorization code).
- Now you will log in into your Strikingly dashboard.
- Click on ‘Domains’ and then click on ‘transfer domain’.
- Key in your domain name in the field and click ‘Transfer’.
Image taken from Strikingly
- You’ll then be asked to key in the EPP code that you requested from your current domain registrar and click ‘confirm transfer’.
- There will be a few more fields for you to fill up along the process, simply to get you to confirm that you really want to transfer domain.
- At the end, you’ll click on ‘Confirm Purchase’ and Strikingly will charge the amount on your card on file, which is based on the domain extension you’re using (e.g. .com, .net etc.).
Your domain transfer will now show in the ‘Waiting’ status. If your transaction fails, you will be asked to update your billing information. In case the status changes to ‘Failed’, you can click on the ‘Retry’ button to see why it failed and try again. When the domain transfer is done, the status will change to ‘Live’.
Image taken from Strikingly
To transfer domain to Strikingly is really that simple. If your website is built in Strikingly, then it’s best for you to have your domain also in Strikingly. But even if your website is built in some other website builder or developed from scratch by a web developer, you can still try out Strikingly as your domain registrar. We offer full-time free live chat support, which makes it very convenient for our customers to ask us anything and get instant responses.
If you don’t have a website yet, you can start building one today. The first step would be to register a domain name with Strikingly. We love to see businesses expand and create online portfolios with us at Strikingly.
