If you are wanting to transfer a Domain Name IN (transfer TO us) or if you are wanting to transfer a Domain Name OUT (transfer away to another company) the steps and the restrictions and the requirements are basically the same either way. So, before you start, it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the following Knowledgebase articles:
1) The Domain Transfer Overview
2) The Domain Transfer Restrictions
3) The Domain Transfer Information
As mentioned in the 'Domain Transfer Information' article, it is also very important to understand that THE DOMAIN TRANSFER PROCESS IS A USER DRIVEN PROCESS. This means that you (the Client) need to understand and administer the transfer process. Registration companies (such as us) are not to be involved in the steps of domain transfers. There a a number of restrictions in place as checks & balances, and we're not allowed to circumvent those checks & balances. So, we get lots of people askign ''can you please transfer xwz.com from Network Solutions into my account with you?" and the short answer is no, we can't. In that situation we (as the potential 'gaining' registration company can help explain the steps to you, but we can't actually initiate anything... YOU have to do that.
Likewise, we have people as us "can you push my domain xwz.com from my account with you over to Network Solution's registry please?". Again, no we can't. As the ''gaining'' registray, Network Solutions is required to help you through the process, and as the potential losing party, we are required to be hands off in the process. That's part of the ICANN Registry rules, and part of the checks & balances in place so that YOU (the client) are required to understand and administer the process, wether you are transfering IN or OUT.
DETAILED TRANSFER STEPS:
Once you have read and understood the process (and understood that the GAINING REGISTRAR is required to help you through the process) and once you are certain that none of the Domain Transfer Restrictions will prevent you from effecting a transfer, then these are the steps you need to take.
1) UNLOCK THE DOMAIN
This is essential. Most TLD Domains (.com, .net, .org, .ca, etc) allow you to set a 'LOCK' or a 'REGISTRY LOCK' or a 'CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBIT' on the domain. This is a setting that you can turn on and off, and it's for your protection. As mentioned before, this is a setting that YOU must log in and toggle on or off as per your wishes. Also, when you register a new domain, this feature is turned on by the Registry by default, so you will almost 100% for sure need to UNLOCK the domain before you can do much else with it. Our system refers this to as ''REGISTRY LOCK'' and most Registration companies will use similar terms. This needs to be Disabled or Unlocked before you can do anything else.
2) MAKE SURE THE DOMAIN's ADMIN & REGISTRANT CONTACT INFORMATION IS CORRECT.
This is essential, in particular the email address on the ADMIN and REGISTRANT contact on the domain. Again, this is 100% essential, since later on, the Registry will email certain things - such as the EPP Transfer Key and the Confirmation Emails. If you don't receive these, you can't really complete the transfer process. So, the very first thing you need to do is to make sure that the Domain Name's ADMIN and REGISRANT contact information is correct and up to date. This also means that you'll likely want to turn off any 'generic' or 'stealthed' or 'privacy' settings, where your email isn't attached to the domain. So - for example - if you have setup the domain with ''generic@generic.com'' as the email contact, you'll need to log into your customer profile and change that to be your real email address. AFTER YOU ARE SURE THAT THE DOMAIN'S ADMIN/REGISTRANT EMAIL ADDRESS IS CORRECT, THEN:
3) FETCH THE EPP TRANSFER KEY.
The EPP Transfer Key will be emailed to the Admin / Registrant contact (depending if it's a .com or .net or .info or .ca or .uk.co or whatever type of domain) and that's why step #1 is so imporant. If you don't complete step 1 first, you can never get your EPP key. Please note again, this is a step that you need to do. WE DON'T HAVE YOUR EPP KEY. They are set by the upstream Registrar and when you request it, it's emailed from the Registry System to the Admin/Registrant contact's email. We don't have it, we can't get it for you - it doesn't matter if you are transferring IN or OUT, you need to get your own EPP Transfer Keys.
4) INITIATE THE TRANSFER AT THE GAINING (NEW) REGISTRATION COMPANY
With very few exceptions, it generally not possible to 'PUSH' a domain from one place to another. Transfers are 'PULLS' - so you initiate a transfer at the new company, and you provide that new company the EPP Transfer Key that you have previously fetched, and if you do that correctly, the transfer can proceed.
5) WATCH FOR, READ, UNDERSTAND AND REPLY TO THE CONFIRMATION EMAILS SENT TO YOU.
If you've done all the previous steps properly, then when you initiated the transfer, an email asking for confirmation will be sent to you. More exactly, it'll be sent to whatever the ADMIN/REGISTRANT email is, so it's imporant that you properly change the contact email to your email. It's also imporant to check your SPAM box, these confirmation emails can easily look like junk mail to your SPAM checker. If you don't see, read, understand and reply properly to that confirmation email, the transfer will fail.
6) AFTER THE TRANSFER IS COMPLETE - LOG BACK IN AND CANCEL ANY BILLING AT THE OLD COMPANY.
This is very imporant. Most companies will not know when the domain is transfered OUT. They will likely keep your account active, they will likely keep providing services and will likely keep billing you. So, it's imporant to log back into your customer account and cancel any services (Domain, DNS, Email, Hosting, etc) that you no longer want with the old company. Again, the server resources will still be allocated to you (even if you're not using them) and the capacity of those servers will still be your billing resonsibility, so it's imporant to cancel your billing on any services you no longer need from your old company. This applies for Domains transfered IN to us (you'll want to cancel billing with your old company) as well as for Domain transfered OUT from us (you'll want log back in and cancel billing with us).
