How to Transfer Your Domain Away from GoDaddy

Just because you bought your domain through GoDaddy doesn't mean you have to keep it there.

Since we started offering our domain registration service lots of folks are asking how to transfer domains away from GoDaddy. On our end it’s a pretty easy, straight forward process.

But GoDaddy’s side is a little less obvious. Go figure.

Before You Transfer

There are a couple things you should do before you try to transfer your domain because if you don’t they will cause problems for you during the process.

Turn off Domain Privacy

If you purchased Domain Privacy through GoDaddy for your domain you should turn it off before you transfer the domain. That means you will have to find your Domains By Proxy login information. It should be in an email you got when you purchased your domain.

The good news is we include domain privacy with most all our domains with the purchase price. (There are a few registries that don’t allow/support private registration.) So if you’re paying extra for that service with GoDaddy you will likely be saving money with us every year.

 Disable Domain Locking

In order to transfer a domain you must turn off domain locking. This is a safety feature that most reputable domain registrars offer to prevent unauthorized changes. Just click on the little lock icon to the right of the domain in their Domain Manger list.

Verify Contact Emails

Double check that the contact email addresses associated with your domain are still valid. GoDaddy will email you some info that you need to get. So be sure the Administration Contact email especially is set to your current email address so you will receive what they send you. If it isn’t then correct it.

Give these changes a minute or two to reflect your setting changes.

Transferring the Domain

Now you are ready to actually transfer your domain.

You can start by going to our Domain Registration Page. Since you already have a domain, click the “Transfer Domain” link over the search box in the middle of the page.

Here is the link to get GoDaddy to email you the Transfer Authorization Code

Go through the process there. It’s pretty self explanatory.

Then our system will send you a transfer request email.

Transfer Authorization

But before you do anything with that you will have to send yourself an authorization code from your GoDaddy account.

Back in your GoDaddy domain manager click on the domain you are transferring. Then click on the link in the Authorization Code field that says, “Send by Email”. (See the screenshot to the right for the location of that link.)

Then GoDaddy will send an email to the address listed in your domain’s Administration contact that contains the transfer authorization code.

Confirm Transfer Request

Once you have that transfer authorization code from GoDaddy then you can go back to the transfer request email that our system sent you. In it you will find a link to either confirm or deny the transfer.

Click that link.

That will take you to a page where you have to input the GoDaddy transfer authorization code, acknowledge that you are accepting the transfer of the domain, click the check box to agree with our terms of service and click the button to transfer the domain.

You’re nearly done at this point.

Get GoDaddy to Complete the Transfer

The link to complete the transfer from GoDaddy is a little hard to find.

(And this is the part that GoDaddy doesn’t seem to mention anywhere.)

If you do nothing at this point your domain will be transferred eventually. I’ve seen it take a week or so before I found this little step to get GoDaddy to complete the transfer right away.

Just log back into your GoDaddy domain manager and click the link for “Pending Transfers.” (See the screen shot to the right.)

Click the check box next to the domain you want to approve the transfer of and click the “Approve” button above the list of domain(s).

Then you should only have to wait a couple of hours or so for the transfer to be completed.

Like I said above, If you leave off that last step GoDaddy will take like a week to actually transfer the domain out.

Final Thoughts

To transfer a domain into our service costs $15/year (.com, .net & .org – specialty domains can cost more) which is the same as purchasing a new domain here. That price includes domain privacy, which GoDaddy charges an extra $10 per year for.

You don’t have to wait until the domain is about to expire to transfer it. Whenever a domain is transferred it automatically gets 1 year added on to it’s expiration date, regardless of how much time is left on the domain. If you’re ready to get started you can click here and begin the process.