Well I started the process for moving all my domains registrations (in number – 5) from Godaddy to namecheap.com.
The reasons I did it was because of Godaddy’s support of the SOPA bill (misnamed the Stop Online Piracy Act). Godaddy has now changed their minds and decided to oppose the bill – but still they should not have supported it to begin with. I don’t think I could _every_ trust them to watch my back – particularly since I have, a times, blogged some fairly un-politically-correct feelings.
The process was amazingly simple. I went to Godaddy and unlocked the domain names and at the same time I had emailed to me the EPP codes. These are codes which are used to transfer domains.
Today (December 29th – the official ‘MoveYourDomain’ day. I went onto namecheap.com and entered a transfer request. I selected namecheap.com because they oppose SOPA, they offered a reduce price on this day, and they would give $1 to the EFF. There were a number of other registration services out there I could have selected. They even gave instructions on how to transfer my domains from godaddy.com.
Right now I am waiting. I have a receipt for the order from namecheap.com. But I have not received a verification email yet. I suspect that they are very busy transfering domains from godaddy.com today.
I heard that the final step is that godaddy will send me an email giving me ‘one last chance’ to change my mind and I will have to log into godaddy and verify that I want to transfer the domains. We’ll see what happens.
I would guess that godaddy is also very busy — being gutted like a fish but its competition.
I always had a problem with godaddy’s website – far too busy and too much push for sales. No to mention their rather sexist ads.
UPDATE 12/30/2011 – 5:20AM
This morning I found 5 emails from namecheap.com – emails they sent to the administrator of record for the 5 domains I am transferring. Each requested that I go to a link and verify that, yes indeed I do want to transfer the domain.
I did that - 5 visits to 5 URLs 5 click on a ‘Yes I want to transfer the domain’ button. It says that the transfer can take from 1 to 5 days – depending on the losing register. Next I expect godaddy.com will send me an email asking me to reconsider or go to a URL on it’s site to, again, verify that I want to transfer the domain.