How do I transfer my domain name and web hosting as painlessly as possible?

If you are transferring both your domain name and your hosting to us, you can prepare your account ahead of the transfer for a near-seamless switchover, with very little downtime.

Domain Reference

A domain reference allows our system to direct traffic from your externally held domain to our servers.  It also provides a place for you to assign a hosting package to, so that you can start to build your site before your domain moves over.

To create a domain reference:

  1. Log into your Customer Area
  2. Click ‘Manage Domain Names’
  3. Click on the icon next to ‘Web Hosting Domain References’
  4. Under ‘Add a new Domain Reference’, enter in the domain name, leaving off the ‘www.’ Part (for example, it would be your-domain.com, not www.your-domain.com)
  5. Click ‘Add Reference’
  6. Your domain reference has been created

Hosting Account

Once you have a domain reference, you can now assign a hosting package to it to begin building your website.

To assign a hosting package to your reference:

  1. Go to your Customer Area
  2. Click ‘Manage Web Hosting’
  3. Select the domain reference from the drop-down next to the package
  4. Click ‘Activate Hosting’
  5. The domain reference will now have a hosting package

It takes approximately one hour for the hosting package to be completely set up in your account.

Creating the Site

You can now add in everything you need to run your website.

  1. Log into your eXtend Control Panel
  2. Get the FTP details needed to upload files to your website
  3. If needed, back up your MySQL database from your existing site, and create a new database and populate it with your backup
  4. Create mailboxes
  5. Build your site to the specifications you have on your existing site

You can test your site and make certain it works via the temporary address provided in your eXtend Control Panel.

Update Nameservers

Updating the nameservers means that your domain name will point at your website on our servers, rather than the one it points to on your old provider.  This also means that the switch from one provider to another will be nearly seamless.

To update nameservers:

  1. Log into your domain name’s host
  2. Go to the Update DNS page
  3. Enter in the following nameservers:

ns1.mainnameserver.com
ns2.mainnameserver.com

  1. Save
  2. The DNS changes may take up to 48 hours to propagate across the Internet

Transfer the Domain Name

The steps for transferring a domain name vary according to the type of domain name.

If you have a .uk domain name:

  1. Go into DNS Management on your provider’s site
  2. Look for the Nominet Tag/IPSTAG
  3. Change the IPSTAG/Nominet Tag to EXTEND

If you have a gTLD domain name:

  1. Unlock your domain name on your provider’s site
  2. Request the transfer authorisation code
  3. Ensure that the administrative contact’s email address is set to a mailbox you have access to

To start the transfer process:

  1. Go to Transfer A Domain in your Customer Area
  2. Enter the address of your domain name into the box, without the ‘www.’ (for example, your-domain.com)
  3. Click ‘Start Transfer’
  4. If the transfer can proceed, click ‘Checkout Now’. If not, review the error and see if you can fix it
  5. Order the domain name transfers

Completing the transfer process with your .uk domain name:

  1. Wait for the IPSTAG to switch over
  2. Your domain will now be in your account

Completing the transfer process with your gTLD domain name:

  1. Your administrative email will receive an email asking for the transfer authorisation code
  2. When you receive that code, go to the website asking for the code, and enter it in
  3. The two providers will agree that the transfer is legitimate, and allow the transfer to proceed
  4. Your domain will now be in your account

The transfer process can take up to seven days to complete.  Since your website is already hosted on our servers, your visitors should not notice any interruption of service.


Article ID: 186
Created On: Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 5:04 PM
Last Updated On: Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 11:25 AM

Online URL: https://www.heartinternet.uk/support/article/how-do-i-transfer-my-domain-name-and-web-hosting-as-painlessly-as-possible.html