Expedite a Domain Name Transfer

I don’t know about you, but I find it particularly annoying when a registrar domain transfer takes far longer than it should. In my opinion, if a domain name is transferred to another domain registrar, it should take no longer than a day to complete as long as all approvals are made by the transferring parties. Unfortunately, it can take up to 5 days for a transfer to be finalized.

Some domain registrars make it very easy to transfer domain names. I’ve transferred names from Enom to GoDaddy in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, I’ve found that some domain registrars seem to make it difficult, and it takes the full 5 days to go through. Perhaps they think that a customer will change his or her mind during that time period or maybe there are other reasons, but it’s frustrating to wait when I know it can be done more quickly.

If you sell a domain name and are awaiting the successful transfer to get paid or if you are consolidating your domain portfolio at one registrar and want it done more quickly, here’s a tip to speed up the domain transfer process.

After you initiate a transfer to another domain registrar and the approvals are made by both parties, if the domain transfer takes longer than one day to complete, get on the phone with the domain registrar where the domain name is registered and ask if they can release the domain name. You might be met with some resistance at first, but you can usually ask a supervisor to have your request upgraded to someone who can give the approval to have the domain name released sooner. Keep in mind that approvals need to be given by both parties before it will be released.

Some companies won’t allow the registrant to have the domain name released early, but I have found that if you ask politely (and speak with someone who understands your request) you can usually have this done pretty quickly.

Waiting for a domain transfer to finalize is annoying, especially when there is a lot of money on hold while the transfer is pending. If you are able to get your domain registrar to release the domain name more quickly, you can save a few days by eliminating the transfer process.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

14 COMMENTS

  1. I have tried this with some registrars but unfortunately most of them said I need to wait for 5 days and they cannot help in this regard… But always good to give a call and check if any registrar can make the transfer process more quicker.

    • Yes, only a few of them. I have tried to prove ownership both on call and email but most of the time I have to wait for 5 days.

      Also at Name.com, I need to email at support to get my domain transfer out quickly and they do the needful. I have asked them to have an option under my control panel so each time I won’t be emailing you. No use as they are happy to do it manually all the time. But at least, Name.com is better than others who even after verifying the ownership doesn’t make the transfer process quick…

  2. About to move 800 domains out of moniker for 7 delay, seriously in the techworld that’s like 3 months, especially when money sitting in escrow. Even of you email me them, they are totally clueless. Name.com is 5 days, should have a button to express it like Godaddy, make it an account option. Let’s get with the times, deals can be lost with such nonsense.

    • Nobody said anything about waiting a month.

      If anything, that five-day window gives (a wee bit) more time to stop the transfer if it turns out actually unauthorized by the registrant.

  3. When people are rushed mistakes are made. Even escrow.com inserts a bit of time into the process to verify that everything with a transaction is kosher.

    While it may be unreasonable to have to wait “the full five days” it’s not unreasonable, if a registrar is doing their job, to not expect them to push through a transaction without a chance to make sure nothing strange has happened.

    Registrars aren’t so much trying to keep a domain name hostage (you make very little large dollars are not involved here) as they are simply making sure that a transaction that shouldn’t have been approved got approved by accident. (And if you know how various systems work and can be gamed you would realize how easy this can actually happen).

    Separately it’s a pretty well know social engineering technique (one of them anyway) to try to berate a customer service rep into doing something they aren’t authorized to do.

    • My opinion is that if I can transfer a name from Enom to GoDaddy in less than a day, I don’t see why others can’t do that as well.

      Why is the transfer process any different at other domain registrars?

    • Well a name can be transferred in an instant the minute the gaining registrar submits the auth code by the losing registrar hitting (essentially) an “accept” button which is built into their software. Literally. So it’s not a tech issue at all. It’s a procedure issue. It can happen much quicker than you even know it to be. (I’ve done this and have completed transfers with known parties in literally less than a minute assuming the code was submitted by the gaining registrar).

      As far as why one registrar might choose to release things quickly could be simply because they are so large that they aren’t really worried about the shit hitting the fan if something goes wrong.

      As far as “why is the transfer process any different at other domain registrars” it is different because registrars are businesses and decide to deal with customers differently for different reasons. This is similar to asking “how come jetblue gives you the first bag for free and US Air doesn’t”. Many factors go into Jetblue deciding to do that.

      Speaking of jetblue my luggage with them was opened. They told me “we only take actual receipts of contents, not copies or you can use credit card statements if you want”. So they have decided that in order (to try) to prevent fraud they put a certain barrier in front of their customers. Other airlines may do it differently (I’ve never had a luggage problem).

      Separately it’s not unusual at all to have all sorts of people submitting auth codes for non legit reasons. Almost an weekly occurance where a “tech guy” manages to convince a clueless customer that they should switch to (insert registrar of choice where they get comped) and then magically the domain whois ends up either private or in the tech guys name (really). After the tech guy has changed the contact email to their name. Some friction is necessary in the process.

    • What you said makes sense.

      Because registrars have different policies, it is a good idea to call and see if the transfer can be manually expedited if it is taking a while.

  4. I am all for faster transfers, I am currently moving everything away from Moniker as they seem to be stealing domains by blocking renewals and ignoring emails. Surprised how many people have had this problem. I would be happier to know everything had been moved away from them within 24hrs than giving them time to do something they shouldn’t.

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