You can transfer domain names to Winhost that were registered elsewhere in order to have all of the elements of your site consolidated under one login and payment method.
Note that we can only accept incoming transfer of .com, .net, .org, .biz, .cloud, .club, .info, .name, .pro, .store, and .xyz domains. As with all domain registrar transfers, there will be a one year extension to your domain registration period. The additional year's registration fee is paid when the transfer is initiated.
Pre-transfer
Before you initiate a domain registrar transfer in Control Panel, you must prepare the domain for transfer. Those preparations include:
- Unlocking the domain if it is locked
- Disabling whois privacy if it is enabled
- Obtaining the transfer authorization - or EPP - key
We have the links to the instructions on how to prepare your domain name for transfer with some well-known registrar in this article. If your domain is registered with a different registrar, you should contact the registrar directly to get the details on how to prepare your domain for transfer.
Beginning the transfer
You begin the transfer process in Control Panel, under the Domains tab. Start the process by clicking the Transfer Domain Name button.
When you initiate the transfer, an email will be sent to the entered registrant email contact for the domain. The email contains a link to an authorization page, where you can approve or deny the transfer request. You will need the authorization code from your previous domain registrar to complete the approval.
Note that the emails during the transfer process will come from Winhost Domain Services, but will also contain information and links referring to Tucows and opensrs.net, our domain registrar partner.
If you do not approve the transfer within five days of initiating it, the transfer will be canceled and you must initiate it again in Control Panel.
Completing the transfer
Once you have approved the transfer to us, the actual transfer between the two registrars can take a day or two. Depending on who the old registrar is, you may be able to speed up the process by also approving the transfer from their control panel. Though this is not always applicable, many of the larger registrars, such as GoDaddy, do allow for transfer approval.
While the transfer is in progress your domain will continue to function as normal (there is no "downtime" in a registrar transfer) and the domain's status will be Pending Transfer in the Winhost Control Panel. When the transfer is complete the domain status changes to Active.
That's all there is to it.