What is the cost and time involved in transferring a .co.uk domain?

[Fredxx]

I'm getting noises from a domain owner that this is a difficult process.

Can anyone outline the procedure?

[Andy Burns]

Find IPSTAG of exiting registrar e.g. for whatever.co.uk, the tag is "BPC-CA"

choose a new hosting company, ask them for their IPSTAG

Contact the existing registrar, tell them to change the domain's IPSTAG to that of the new hosting company, you may be able to do this online with the existing provider

Then go through the new host's "import" procedure, you'll may have to pay to extend the domain by a couple of years, about £10

Change the DNS servers to the new provider (or a.n.other if you prefer)

change the MX records for email to the new provider (or a.n.other if you prefer)

Change the A record for

to the new provider (or a.n.other if you prefer)

Please note that unless both providers and the person doing the changes knows exactly what they're doing, there might be a brief "gap" where email or web, or both aren't working.

As a last resort if existing provider doesn't co-operate, you can go through Nominet direct but then it will cost about £100, but the existing provider should not use a dispute (e.g. over payment) as a reason not to re-tag the domain.

[T i m]

FWIW I did it myself with help from the good people here (moving the web and multiple email addresses) and whilst it was fairly confusing (if you aren't familiar with it), it all seemed to work out in the end. ;-)

e.g. There are differences between say a .co.uk and a .com (how much control you have over them) and sometimes you don't know (without the skills probably) if stuff is actually happening or not (till it does or does not etc).

Moving email accounts can be a bit 'manual' but reasonably easy to do (especially if you want to keep it easy and don't need 100% continuity).

I think the relative difficulty can depend on the complexity (is the web side a simple passive HTML jobby or include databases / back office stuff) and the quantity of data to be moved (bandwidth issues).

Luckily whilst part of the reason for moving was to go from a fairly large and unreliable(?) email host with support that was abroad we went to a smaller with UK support, just as they were moving support to Bulgaria. ;-)

As it happens, they were both very accessible (Support Ticket, Online Chat, phone) and knowledgeable (no matter who you spoke to).

I think it's one of those things that once you have done it 10 times with different circumstances, ISPs, user interface panels and the like, it will come as second nature. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is in principle easy enough, but its tedious.

With the people I use - thats 123 reg - you simply register the domain Then they send a message to whoever holds the domain asking for it to be released.

The owner must then sign in blood to release it.

Ther are usually a LOT of emails and logging into websites involved and it can take some days to complete - specially if its US based like .com or .org

Allow a week for UK domains and two weeks for US

[Andy Burns]

A week? I'd be in touch with support if it wasn't all up and running at the new provider in a couple of hours, assuming the DNS TTL had been reduced in advance of making the change.

[The Natural Philosopher]

you are talking about something else. That is in terms of changing a machine on an existing domain not changing the domain owner altogether. Yes. I can set up a new server and do changeover in an hour as you descrivbe, but in te case of a friend whio had a registered .com domain that someone else had registered for him, it took nearly 10 days to contact the friend who had done it, and arrange for the whole domain to come under my friends PERSONAL ownership and control.

[Andy Burns]

I'm talking about changing the domain registrar, the dns host, web host and email host all in succession ...

Certainly .com domains tend to take longer, or need manual nudges, but the O/P specified a .uk domain.

[T i m]

And with no suggestion that any extra delays would be incurred by having to get additional information or permissions from another party.

They told me things like 'up to 5 days' but it was generally done within hours (2 x .com and 1 x .co.uk).

Cheers, T i m

[Peter Johnson]

I moved a co.uk domain from Plusnet to 1and1 in less than two hours from start to finish, completely online, a couple of years ago.