RSSDomain transfer
Oct 04
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This blog has once again changed domain, out of necessity borne by procrastination. Instead of the normal ramfree17.net domain it is , at the time of writing, hosted in the rm17.xyz domain. Same old capsule but different domain. 😀
This is my first post in the new domain and its likely to be a bit long. The TL;DR version is never transfer domains between registrars if the domain is within 1 month of expiration. Unless its a domain you plan on ditching. 😛
The problem was that when I was notified that my web hosting and domain is up for renewal in my previous hosting company I realized that in the span of 10 years the annual cost of this personal blog site has increased by almost 100%. This blog is not monetized (too low reader count) and serves more as my personal venue for ranting without any risk of getting rebuke (my house, my rules). The cost of the annual upkeep is more than what I am willing to shell out. 😉
A week before my domain expires, I began searching for a more affordable web hosting and domain registrar. After careful deliberation, about 5 minutes, I decided to go with www.domainracer.com. The cost of renewing the domain is 33% less and the 3-year hosting plan equates to a 2/3 reduction in annual cost versus if I renew it with my existing provider. The domain transfer comes with 1 year domain registration. The reduction in costs means there were some restrictions like I can only host one site but its not a deal-breaker for my needs. Then I procrastinated under the guise of allowing myself time to contradict or appeal my decision to move the domain.
I read somewhere in the DomainRacer site that transferring a domain can take a couple of days to replicate wherein the site can be inaccessible while the DNS propagation is taking place. I dont think that was going to be an issue. Three days before the expiration day I pulled the trigger since I needed to request from my current DNS registrar for an unlock code for the transfer. The following morning the ticket got a support reply that I can do that by myself using the client portal. I generated the transfer code and proceeded to order the webhosting and domain transfer.
The webhosting space was available after a few minutes, but its tied to the current domain which hasn’t been transferred so I can do anything with it. The domain transfer was marked as pending so I decided to leave it as is and check back in a few days. Three days later I got a notification from my previous hosting provider that my site and domain has expired. I logged into the DomainRacer client portal and saw that the transfer is still in pending state. In my mind the capsule blog is taking a break. :/
A week later the domain transfer was still not completed. I logged a support ticket and the DomainRacer support responded back after less than an hour stating that my domain has expired and I need to renew it in the current registrar before it can be transferred. What ensued is a long back and forth discussion since renewing it in my current registrar and transferring is a double whammy for me as it will require me to basically shoulder the cost twice. I even posted links from the ICANN FAQ page that it should be possible to transferred expired domains. All that support links did nothing as the DomainRacer support said they cant do anything about it.
In the end I just asked for a refund on the transfer and bought a “temporary” domain for the webhosting packaged that I availed. Once my previous domain becomes available I will just register it with DomainRacer and then for the remainder of the year have both domains point to the same webhost. The refund took a day to complete so my first choice of temporary domain “r17.xyz” became unavailable. I guess a bot took notice that I checked its availability and renewed it thinking it can be an opportunity for cybersquatting and getting a potential customer to buy it from them. Big fat chance! 😏
I settled the temporary domain by adding another character thus my new domain. With the domain secured, I proceeded to do a WordPress installation. This floated one of the main restrictions in the “cheaper” package I availed: I can only host one website. What that meant is that the webhosting package was locked to the old “dot net” domain. /groan
I logged a new ticket to link the webhost allocation with the new domain I acquired. I was told by the tech support that they need to delete the contents of the web-hosting allocation and create a new one. There is no content yet so I gave the go-ahead. The only problem now is that once the new domain becomes available I will need to re-initialize this site. 😝
That is basically the ordeal. 30 minutes later I had this blog running. I wont be able to install the URL shortener package since its not available in this webhost but I saw an option to “load” python code so that is an avenue to explore later on.
Additional hindsight: this domain may become” tempermanent” if procrastination rears it ugly head. 😅
