I have what I’m sure is a very basic question, but I wanted to get a recommendation from those who know. I work for my family’s small business, and due to a difficult year, we can no longer afford to be paying what we have been to our local web design/maintenance company. We’ve put together our own, very simple website on squarespace, which is sufficient for our minimal needs and will cost a fraction as much per year.
My question: I would like to transfer our existing domain, as well as the email addresses attached to it. I would like to request all the correct information from the company that manages our current site when I write what I imagine will be a somewhat difficult email. I know very little about this. Is it as simple as a username and password? I’ve been seeing something about a transfer code, and unlocking the domain. And will admin abilities over our email addresses come with this information?
I appreciate your time. Even a link to a detailed walk-through would be immensely helpful; I’m wading through a field that is far from my own.
It all kind of depends on how things are currently set up. Are you able to log in somewhere to access your domain name? If so, things are pretty simple. If you don’t have login info, you’ll have to ask your current prover for access. You shouldn’t really need to move the domain name from its current host. All you really should need to do is log in to your domain account, and then simply point the domain to your Squarespace site.
If you do want to move your domain to a new host (so that the current people can’t touch it), you need to go do a new domain host and request a transfer. That’s where you need to have the transfer code supplied by the current domain host. If you have access to the current domain account, it should be easy. If you need to get access from your current management company, you will just have to ask. They shouldn’t prevent you, but you never know what kind of people you will encounter in life.
As for email, it depends on how things are set up. The email might be set up along with your current web hosting, or it might be set up using google Apps … etc. So it would be good to know where email is currently hosted. You may not need to do much with it, depending on how it’s set up.
Some of this info (like where the site is hosted, where the email is hosted, and where the domain is hosted) is available online. so feel free to post your domain if you want help gathering that information.
