Domain transfers

It's interesting how issues will come along like buses – you're blissfully unaware of an issue then it will come along a couple of times in rapid succession.

Although I have helped lots of clients with domain issues, these issues have mainly been about registering new domains and moving domains they already own to new domain name registrars.

Transfer of domain registered by someone else

But recently I've had a couple of situations where my client was taking over a domain originally registered by someone else. I thought I knew precisely how to handle it – and I called the registrar of one of these clients to double-check. They confirmed that I had the process right. I advised my client and they started the transfer and it all appeared to go through very quickly.

When I checked later, I realised that, although my client now had control of the domain, and it had been transferred to their new registrar, my client's business name was not showing up in a WHOIS search for that domain name. The name was a .co.uk domain and a quick call to Nominet, the organisation responsible for controlling .uk names, revealed that there was an additional step involved in getting the name of the "registrant" changed. This was a simple process but involved a fee, currently £10 plus VAT.

Deja vu!

Within a few days, the same issue arose again. In this case, the new registrar's transfer process actually included a step that handled the change of registrant.

Suitably chastened, I have now amended my standard email about domain transfers!