How to transfer domain names and how to transfer websites. Information on how to transfer domain registrars or full website files.
 

Before you start:
Make a user account at cheaphostr.com. You will need somewhere to “store” your domain name once it’s transfered and/or a webhosting account to place your website files after you have transfered. You cannot transfer before you have a place to put it. Ensure you have checked that the domain extension you are transferring to us is in the list of names that we carry. We do sell/transfer most extensions, .com .us, however there are some that may not be transfered.
Log into your current domain registrars account and find your domain key. You will need it. (keep reading)
IF you will be purchasing a cheaphostr.com webhosting plan that comes with a free domain name PLEASE purchase the hosting BEFORE you transfer your domain! This is IMPORTANT. If purchasing hosting WITH a free domain name, you will first select the hosting account type, and then another screen will open to ask you if you are transfering an existing domain name or will be buying a new domain name for the new hosting account.
Cheaphostr.com has FREE DOMAIN TRANSFERS WITH most hosting accounts. IF you transfer BEFORE you have ordered hosting a transfer fee will be due! This cannot be undone (the payment goes to ICAAN not cheaphostr.com) and there will be NO difference to your hosting fee with cheaphostr.com. We CAN and WILL assign that domain to your hosting account and pay the renewals ourselves each year you are hosted with us. IF you’re not sure what you’re doing, ask cheaphostr support to work with you or for you. It’s a FREE service!

HOW TO TRANSFER A DOMAIN NAME

Log into your cheaphostr.com user account, and select domains from the left column, then select transfer domain from the dropdown list of your user portal.
Copy and paste the full name of your domain into the text field. Include the extension, do not include www.
Eg: yourwebsite.com not http://www.yourwebsite.com
Click submit
You will now be asked to enter your “domain secret”
Your domain secret is a number assigned to your domain. This is sometimes called a domain “key”, however some webhosts call it many different names.
Copy and paste your domain secret into the text field.
Click submit.
You will now be able to select how many years you wish to add to your domain.
Please remember your domain transfer fee IS your next years renewal fee. Though the words are different you are in fact registering your domain for another year, it is not an extra fee.
Please note that some domain names may only be registered in lots of 2 years at a time (.com.au cannot make a 1 year payment), and the maximum amount of years you can prepay your domains is 10 years. IF you have already paid for 10 years registration you will be unable to “add another year to it” or transfer this year, and will have to wait until next year.
Choose how many years you would like to “add” to you domain and click submit.
If you have already made a user account, you will not need to fill out any details such as your name and address as they will already be in the system.
The next step will be making your payment for the transfer (equal to the amount for the year(s) you will be renewing. You will now be transfered to a secure payment area for the payment.
After the payment is processed you will be sent an automated email from cheaphostr.com with all the details on it.
You may now log out of your cheaphostr.com user account OR transfer more domains, order hosting etc.
YOU WILL RECEIVE an email from ICAAN through your previous domain registrar asking you if you wish to transfer your domain name. You MUST click the link in this email to start the process for transfer. If you do not click it, the transfer will be cancelled on the assumption that another person has attempted to transfer your domain name. This email sent to your email account is a safety and security precaution.
Your domain name transfer will take between 7 and 10 days to complete. IF you have a website hosted with this domain elsewhere you should now COPY all the files (including database files) and add them to your new hosting account at cheaphostr.com. When the transfer occurs your new website files will be ready and will display instantly. If you have not transfered your site files by this time your visitors will receive a 404 message where your website used to be!
IMPORTANT
After registering a domain or transfering a domain you MAY (or may not) receive an email to VERIFY the accuracy of your details. Please read it and IF you are required to click a link in it to verify click it! If you ignore this email (from ICAAN not cheaphostr), your domain name can be suspended, paused or cancelled! You must answer this email if it says you must answer it!
A word on your domain secret:
This assigned number MUST be available in your user account with your current registrar. It is not permitted to be hidden and registrars and webhosts are not permitted to require you to ask for it, send them a support request for it, or anything else, but some do. If you are unable to find your domain secret, send your registrar a support ticket. You are not required to answer any questions or fill out any forms. You may need to remind them that they are in breach of the terms and conditions of being a licenced registrar. IF your registrar will not answer, or wont give you your domain key,
please check:
1. You did not buy the domain name under an offer where you are NOT the owner of the domain (some hosts buy the domain in their own name to stop you transferring your sites. Though this may seem fraudulent, you will see it was IN the terms and conditions you agreed to. (please note: cheaphostr.com domains are registered in YOUR name).
2. You did not buy the domain name under an offer where you are not permitted to transfer for a specific period.
Some registrars/hosting companies sell domains for 1 cent but you are not permitted to transfer for anywhere from 3 months to five years! If you have agreed to this you will not be able to transfer that domain and may need to consider selecting a new domain. (please note: most cheaphostr.com hosting plans come with a free domain name, so though we are suggesting you “buy” another, it will actually be cheaphostr who will pay for it, and pay for the renewal each year, so if you are purchasing hosting, your new domain name will be free!) IF you wish to KEEP the same website (all the info that is already built) read further down the page for how to transfer a website.
3. The domain name actually belongs to you. If you have a “free domain name” from certain services you never owned it, and you can’t transfer it.
If you have checked all these things and your registrar still wont supply your domain secret to you, contact cheaphostr.com support and we’ll get the ball rolling for you!

HOW TO BULK TRANSFER DOMAIN NAMES

If you are transfering more than one domain name to cheaphostr.com you can use our bulk domain transfer form.
Log into your cheaphostr.com user portal and select domains, then select bulk transfer.
Follow the same steps from above:
Enter each domain name with the extension included but not including http:// or www.
Eg:
domain1.com, domain2.com, domain3.com,
Add your domain secret for each domain name in the space provided.
Click submit, you will now select how many years you wish to renew for, then be taken to the payment page.
WHAT IS A PARKED DOMAIN
A parked domain is any domain name that you own but you are not using with any hosting account (meaning that you are not using for a website). You may have these because you are planning on using them in the future, or you may have bought a domain for a child who is not old enough to use it yet, eg: johnsmith.com.
Cheaphostr.com has FREE parking for domains, meaning that you can keep them in your user account at cheaphostr.com without any costs to you. All parked domains have a free email account with all our email features included.

HOW TO TRANSFER YOUR WEBSITE

C panel hosting is brilliant! If you have c panel with your current host this is a piece of cake! If not, you’ll have to follow all the steps below!
Log into your user account with your current host, navigate to c panel. (or login straight to c panel if your host does not allow you access through your user account area (which they should…)).
Find and click on BACKUP WEBSITE.
From the dropdown select the name of the website you will be backing up.
You will now be asked how much of the website you want to back up, ie, do you want to backup the WHOLE site, including databases, ftp accounts, emails, all the folders and files. You may even have a SELECT ALL. If you do, select SELECT ALL, otherwise tick EVERYTHING ELSE.
Now click enter, or next, or submit (whatever the button says).
You will now have a .zip file of your complete website.
Download it to your computer.
Log into your CHEAPHOSTR c panel and find INSTALL SITE. Click this, when it opens UPLOAD the zip file and click install.
Youre finished! (please read notes below on what to do next IF you are waiting for domain name transfers to complete!)
Depending on the type of website you have, there are two ways this is done. A website without databases can skip database info. If you have databases and ftp accounts you will need to follow all the steps.
Please note: Cheaphostr.com has a free website transfer service for all users, so if you want us to do this for you just send an email to support FROM your user portal. (Hosting members tranfering to cheaphostr only!)
Please start by making a folder on your HOME computer to place these files into! You might want to name the folder NEWSITE so you know where everything is, and everything is in one place. Please DONT download to your downloads folder or to your desktop!
1. Backup your databases
In your C panel click on and open PHPMYADMIN.
Once it’s opened, in the left column CHOOSE the database you will be transfering and click it. Another page will open. At the bottom of the page you will see a box that says “select all”. Tick this box. Next to it you will see a dropdown selector. Select DOWNLOAD SQL FILE.
This will make a copy of the .sql file for that database.
Download this file to your computer (we will use this to upload to create a new database at cheaphostr.com) and place it in your NEWSITE folder!
Repeat this proceedure for ALL the databases you wish to move. Remember to check how many databases you have on your site, especially if you didn’t build it yourself!
2. Make a NOTE of any email accounts used for this website. If you want to use the same email addresses you will need to know what they were all called. You WONT need to make a backup of anything here, you will just remake new email addresses in your new hosting account.
3. FTP Accounts
Your domain names FTP account will be automatically added to your new domain account when you transfer, so you don’t need to worry about backing this up. Once again, it’s AUTOMATIC, you don’t have to do it.
For your other FTP accounts, those that you have made for others working on your sites, or for sites that are sending you information via FTP you will need to remake the account in your new hosting panel. Passwords can be the same or you can make new ones.
4. Backing up your folders and files.
In your C panel click on and open FILE MANAGER.
Locate the FOLDER for the website you are transfering. In this example we will call it moving.xyz (please note the folder for your website may or may not have an extension after it like .com)
A) right click on moving.xyz and select ZIP
B) Make a zip file of your complete folder. And now wait, it could take a while depending on what you have in there! If it’s a LOT of files, lots of images etc, it could take quite a while. Go and make a cup of tea, feed the dog. You might have time to watch the news but it should be finished before you have time to watch a movie. (this is our way of saying we don’t know how long it will take). In the meantime DON’T get sick of waiting and try starting again, just go off and do something else and keep checking it.
When the zip is complete it will be in your file manager named: moving.zip
Right click on moving.zip and download it to your home computer and place it in your NEWSITE FOLDER with your .sql files and ftp files.
5. Log into your cheaphostr.com c panel account. You can do this straight from your user portal, or use the c panel login url.
Open your c panel, click on PHPMYADMIN
click on IMPORT. A window will open where you can select your .sql file. Simply upload it and the database will be made!
Repeat this proceedure for all the databases you are moving.
6. Unzipping your folders and files.
In C panel, click file manager.
When file manager opens click UPLOAD.
Upload your zip named: moving.zip into file manager.
Uploading may take a while, and may be faster using filezilla! Again, once you start uploading you may have time to take the dog for a walk or do a load of laundry before it’s finished (depends on your file size…=we can’t guess). It’s important not to get impatient and restart. There is a moving image letting you know that it’s working. Be patient.
When upload is complete locate moving.zip and right click on it. Choose EXTRACT HERE
ALL your website files will now extract into your file manager! And, your website is online! (If you’re waiting for a domain name transfer this site is now READY and waiting for the transfer to occur.)
7. FINISHED TRANSFERING!!!
It’s all done!
Remember to make your new email accounts!
IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT
IF you are transfering your domain name(s) and sites it’s important that you WAIT until after your domain names HAVE finished transfering BEFORE you delete the files from your previous hosting account, or delete any databases. IF you deleted them and you have NOT made a backup your website WILL BE OFFLINE until after the transfer has completed!!!
DONT make this mistake!!! Unfortunately we wont be able to help you! We’re good but we’re not that good!
8. Delete your databases and website folder files at your previous host and cancel your hosting account. Be particularly mindful of REMOVING all credit card details and cancelling any payments that are automated. If you CANT delete them CHANGE the numbers to a fake set! Also remember to remove your details from any mailing lists as after you have cancelled you will not be able to access these TO cancel them!
Some webhosts require you to cancel your hosting IN writing AND they keep your credit card details in a separate database ensuring you CANT delete your information and will CONTINUE to charge you for services even when you aren’t using them. Do NOT rely on deleting your card numbers! Make sure you email them and tell them AND if you’re still wary contact your financial provider and cancel any future payments to them. Your bank will be happy to help. If your payments were made from paypal, log into your paypal account and remove them from your list of approved periodic payments.
more info:
create a free cheaphostr user account
how to choose a domain name
Compare hosting packages – business websites ecommerce unlimited – cheap hosting!
Get help from Cheaphostr to transfer