Domains

A password for the domain itself, issued by your current registrar. It is proof that the person asking for the transfer is the person who holds the name — which is exactly what you want standing between your domain and somebody else. You may see it called an EPP code, an auth code or a transfer key; they are the same thing.

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It reaches the person who places your transfer, and it is used once. A code only authorises the move it was issued for — the moment the domain lands here the old one stops working, and a fresh one is issued to you in your account. If you would rather not put it in a form at all, leave the field empty and say so. We will ask for it when we are ready to place the transfer.

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Usually five to seven days. Your current registrar is entitled to a five-day window and some of them use all of it. Approving the confirmation email as soon as it arrives is the only thing that makes it faster — ignoring it is what makes it slow.

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Not for the first sixty days. Registries lock a name for sixty days after it is registered, and again for sixty days after a previous transfer. It is not a rule any registrar can waive. Check the date, and come back when it has passed.

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Almost every domain is, and that is a good thing — the lock is what stops somebody moving it without you. You turn it off yourself at your current registrar, usually in one click, and it goes back on here once the transfer lands.

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They stay as they are. The domain keeps pointing at whatever it points at now, and you can change it here afterwards whenever you like. If you also want the hosting or the mail moved, tell us — that is separate work and we will not do it by surprise.

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No. A domain transfer and a hosting migration are different jobs, and plenty of people do one without the other. If you want both, we will help with the second one properly rather than folding it into the first.

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Yes. Put them in the form together with their codes, or just send the list and we will tell you which are eligible and what the total would be before anything is started.

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The price on the table above for your extension, and nothing else. It buys the transfer and a year of registration together. There is no setup fee and no charge if a transfer fails.

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From the registry that holds the extension, through RDAP — the public lookup service registries run for exactly this purpose. Nothing is passed through a third party, and the answer is cached for a few minutes so that checking the same name twice does not ask twice.

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Because almost no registry publishes it any more, and the few that still do publish things like a private individual's home address. We show what a domain says about its own registration — the registrar, the dates, the locks and the nameservers — and not the person behind it. If you need to reach a holder, most registrars run a contact form that forwards a message without disclosing the address.

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A registry has to register a lookup service with IANA for it to be readable this way, and not every one has. Among the extensions we sell, .io, .co and .me are the ones people ask about most. There is nothing wrong with those names — the record simply is not published anywhere we can read it.

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It is the registrar lock, and it is on by default at any competent registrar. It stops the name being moved away without the holder switching it off first, which is the single most effective protection against domain theft. It is not a fault, and it does not stop you transferring a name you hold — you turn it off, take the auth code, and start the move.

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Not yet, and usually not for a while. An expired name goes through a grace period in which the holder can still renew it, then a redemption period of about thirty days in which they can recover it at a fee, and only then is it deleted. The status column tells you which of those stages it is in.

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Yes, and this page will show you the same public record anybody else sees. What you hold with us is in your account, where the nameservers, the lock and the auth code are yours to change.

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A name somebody already registered and has decided to sell. They tend to be short, made of ordinary words, and the kind of thing you would have chosen first if it had been free. Because an owner sets the price rather than a registry, they cost considerably more than an ordinary registration.

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Because somebody owns one and does not have to sell it. The price reflects what the name is worth to a buyer — its length, the words in it, and whatever history it has accumulated. It is a second-hand market with one of each item, which is why there is no list price and why we quote each name individually.

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No. In most cases a premium name renews at the ordinary rate for its extension — you pay the premium once, to acquire it. Some registries do apply a premium renewal to particular names; we will confirm which you are dealing with in the same quote as the purchase price, before you commit.

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Search on a word rather than a name, using the box at the top of this page. It looks for names built around that word that are currently for sale. If you already have a specific name in mind, tell us and we will find out whether its owner will sell it and at what price.

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You tell us the name, we come back with the price in writing. Once you accept and pay, the transfer of ownership begins — it usually takes five to seven days, because a person or a broker on the other side has to release the name. You get an email when it lands in your account, and from that point it behaves like any other domain you hold here: DNS, renewals, transfers, all in the same place.

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Sometimes, and it is worth checking rather than assuming. An old name can carry links and direct traffic that a new registration does not have; it can equally carry a history you would not want attached to your business. Ask us before you buy and we will tell you what we can see about the specific name — that is a more useful answer than anything this page could claim about premium names in general.

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No, and that is on purpose. A premium purchase is a transfer between two owners over several days, not an instant registration, so it does not go through the normal checkout. It starts with a quote and ends with the name in your account.

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