Transferring Your Domain From GoDaddy to WA - What I Learned The Hard Way

byRScarrott

660 followers

6 years ago

I didn't realize that transferring a domain to WA was so difficult. I became very frustrated with Go Daddy and they did not make the process easy, so I thought I would share my experience with everyone in hopes that it may help someone else looking to transfer their domain name over to WA. I also quickly want to thank Kyle for his help on this process. It's a great feeling to know that you are with a company that truly cares about their members. Thanks Kyle. :)

Transferring Domain From Godaddy.com to WA

Sign in to your domain manager - verify that your email address in your contact information is current or correct as you will receive an authorization code from GoDaddy that you will need to complete the transfer.

Select your domain name from the Domain Settings Page.

Remove the protected registration and private registration from your domain - note that GoDaddy will deny the transfer if this isn't done.

Under Contact Information - Remove Privacy - note that you are making this now public (it will only be labeled private if you had paid for the privacy option at the time you purchased the domain) Click 'Yes, Remove Privacy,' to complete the removal.

Unlock Your Domain Name

Domains are always locked to keep them secure. Locked domains cannot be transferred to another registrar, so you will need to unlock it before you make the transfer or GoDaddy will deny the transfer.

How to Unlock Your Domain - Go to Domain Settings Page. On the Domain Settings Page, under Additional Settings, click the Edit link next to Domain lock. Then click the toggle to Off.

Get An Authorization Code

This is sometimes referred to as an EPP code or transfer key. Click on Get Autorization Code only after you have followed these steps and then you will have to wait to receive the code from Go Daddy in your email account. You may not receive the code right away. It took a few hours the first time I tried it (first one was canceled) but the next attempt, it came over within a few minutes. Once you have the code, follow the below steps on WA.

Go To WA - Click on Websites - Click on Site Domains

Click on Transfer a Domain to WA. Here you will add the domain name and the transfer code (I copy and pasted it which is easier as the code is a set of numbers and letters, etc)

Click on add domain. You will be charged at that time for the domain, which is normally $13.99 for 1 year. A note here that if the transfer is not successful, you will receive a refund from WA. You should see a response that the transfer is in progress or if it's canceled for some reason. The transfer time depends on the registrar you are transferring the domain from. Go Daddy does not make this process easy. I had to call them multiple times since the first two attempts, it was canceled and the third time was the charm but it took almost a week. Once your domain is transferred to WA, you will see the status that shows, Transferred Successfully.

Conclusion

I thought this process was going to be easy and as I quickly learned, it wasn't. I got different answers from GoDaddy domain support when I asked them how long it would take to transfer. One person told me it would take 5-7 days and another person told me 7-10 days. I pretty much told them they needed to get on the same page with their answers. I must have called them 4 different times to figure out what was going on and I felt that no one could ever give me a direct answer.

I will tell you that I will NEVER buy another domain from GoDaddy. They made this process so difficult that it deterred me from ever doing business with them again. I do not like getting upset but that's what it seemed to take for them to take me seriously.

On the flip side, the process was very simple with WA and I now have my domain here on the WA platform. Thank Goodness!

Good luck with any future domain transfers and I hope this information helps. :)

To your success,

Renee'