hey nerds! i need some help!
three years ago, when we started up this whole crazy LAP thing, the first thing i did was to see if the URL was available. sadly, it was not. since that time, we’ve lived with a truncated version of our name as our URL for the main site. for three years, it’s sat in the back of my brain, wondering if i should make contact with the owner of the domain name we want, whether it really mattered, etc.
a couple of weeks ago, i did my semi-annual check to see if the URL was still in use. and yes, it was. but i decided i would finally just bite the bullet and ask. her blog hadn’t been updated in ages and if memory served me correctly, the photos on the site with the desired URL hadn’t changed either. so i sent a nice email, explaining my intent, how funny it was that we both have a business in the same industry with the exact same name, oh, and what do you think about maybe… transferring your domain ownership to us? i politely explained how it didn’t seem the work had been updated very much and maybe, just maybe…
so i waited. and waited. i thought either 1) i’d really upset her and she was ignoring my email or 2) it got lost in a spam filter (it did sound kinda’ like a scam thing once i re-read it). well! lo & behold, she wrote back today. turns out, yes: her work had slacked off as it became less of a priority (it was a part-time venture) and that she was actually going to wrap up her time as a photographer to put full focus back on her main career. so she’s entirely willing to part ways with the domain name! hooray!
so… what next? i genuinely have no idea where to go from here. i’m willing to help step her through the process when she’s ready as she’s made it pretty clear she’s not tech-savvy in the least, but frankly, i don’t even know where to start. i know we’re on different domain hosting providers, so there’s a good jumping off point!
Here’s what you do; contact your domain host (ours is Go Daddy, so this is how it works with them) and tell them what’s up at that you need them to initiate a transfer. They will then send her an email, and you an email that are going to contain codes. just follow the instructions on the email and as long as she does too, BAM, transfer of domain control complete. – RP
Been in this Nerd Game since 1995, son. HA!
Your domain hosting company should be able to assist you in the required documents in adjusting the domain registry from her ownership to your ownership and transferring from her domain host. Who are you hosting with?
+1 on both RP and jmac.
Well, you might want to make her an offer unless she’s willing to let it go for free. So, I’d start there. For the one domain I sold, we went through some escrow web site. That may not be necessary if you can trust her (or if she’s not asking for any money).
Her whois record says she registered at Wild West Domains, a subsidiary of GoDaddy. I don’t know if GoDaddy considers transfers between WWD as “transferring between GoDaddy accounts” or “transferring from another registrar.”
I don’t know what charges are associated, if any, with asking GoDaddy to take care of the dirty work. If you decide not to have the registrars take care of it, as described above, she will need to unlock the domain, get an authorization code, and send it to you.
Then, you purchase the transfer: http://www.godaddy.com/domains/domain-transfer.aspx
That should send the admin contact of her domain two more codes that she’ll send to you. Then, you log into GoDaddy, go to pending transfers, and fill out the rest of the info.
For reference, here’s a help article to start with: http://help.godaddy.com/article/1592
For what it’s worth, things are MUCH easier if she will change all the domain contact info to your information. That will mean the authorization codes and what not will be sent to you, and you won’t have to keep checking back with her to get updates.