In this section I will teach you how to transfer an existing domain name to another web hosting provider; as well as show you how to turn that transferred domain name into either a parked domain name or an addon domain name. First though. Familiarise yourself with what a parked domain name is and what an add-on domain name is, so you know the advantages and disadvantages.

An Add-On Domain is a normal domain name (i.e. www.software.com) that points/links to a sub-folder within your main domain name's public_html (website) folder. That sub-folder is normally named after your add-on domain name (i.e. software.com). So if your main domain name is www.computers.com and your add-on domain name is www.software.com your web hosting provider will create a new sub-folder called software.com inside the public_html folder of www.computers.com and then point/link (redirect) www.software.com to that new sub-folder called software.com. Therefore. Anyone typing www.software.com into their web browser will be taken to a sub-folder called software.com within the public_html folder of www.computers.com. The advantages of an add-on domain name are that 1) It has its own folder which means it can be classed/treated as a website within its own right and 2) It saves on buying two web spaces (two pure websites). However. The overall disadvantage of hosting two domain names (a main domain name and an add-on domain name) is that they share the same web space and bandwidth. This has serious side-effects if you want to have video on one or both websites (domain names) because the web space and bandwidth might be shared unevenly, which means a customer might miss out on a download. For example. A free video download on www.software.com might take up the bandwidth for a buying customer on www.computers.com.

A Parked Domain is a normal domain name (i.e. www.software.com) that points/links (redirects) to your main domain name (i.e. www.computers.com) only - It has no web space folder or bandwidth of its own because it shares the same web space and bandwidth allocated to your main domain name. A parked domain name is typically set up when you want a .co.uk and a .com for example to go to the same web space. So if you have www.computers.com as your main domain name and www.computers.co.uk as your parked domain name, visitors who type www.computers.co.uk into their web browser will be sent to the same web space that www.computers.com is using and therefore see the same website content (the same web pages, video and so on).

When you have a website (web space and domain name) it is normally purchased, by you, on a yearly basis. The domain name registration can be extended for longer, if you wish, but in a normal scenario a .com for example is registered for one year and a .co.uk for two years. This is possible because your domain name and web space are two different entities and can therefore be separated or joined. And this is the beauty of domain names. If you do not like your current web hosting provider hosting your website (web space and domain name), for whatever reason(s), you can cancel your web space hosting contract with them while keeping your domain name. Well, that is the theory anyway. Unfortunately. The reality for some people is quite different. They are made to stick with their web space contract, for whatever reason(s), and have no rights over their domain name transfer because their web hosting provider is holding back on the EPP Code.

If you have ever tried to switch to another broadband provider or mobile phone contract you will know that whilst under contract you need a transfer code for them known respectively as a Migration Authorisation Code (MAC Code) and a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC Code). And it is a similar scenario when wanting to transfer your domain name. You need to contact your current web hosting provider, or domain name registrar directly, in order to get your Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP Code) transfer code. An epp code looks something like this (depends on the issuer): ab1234cd567890e1.

When you purchase a domain name using a web hosting provider, as opposed to going directly to a domain name registrar, the web hosting provider registers that domain name for you with their preferred domain name registrar. The downside of this is that they normally register their own company details as the owner of that domain name and not your details. So they have ownership of your domain name because they have the username & password of the registrar account that was set up for your domain name. To make matters worse! some web hosting providers are also domain name registrars (known as Resellers). So in these situations you need to speak nicely to your web hosting provider and ask them for the EPP Code or the User Name & Password of the registrar account.

To manually find out who the registrar/reseller is for your domain name nip over to Domain Tools for example and check your WHOIS record. Look at the REGISTRAR DETAILS and you should see ICANN REGISTRAR together with ENOM Inc for example. If so, go to http://www.enom.com/help/, scroll down the help page a little and then use their Reseller Information Retrieval Tool to find out the name of the registrar/reseller responsible for you domain name. This is only necessary if your WHOIS record does not specify the registrar/reseller in the REGISTRATION SERVICE PROVIDED BY section. If it does, you do not need to use the ENOM tool. For example. The REGISTRATION SERVICE PROVIDED BY section might state: namecheap.com as the registrar. In which case you would contact them directly for your domain name's EPP Code or your registrar account User Name & Password, if your current web hosting provider set up an account for you. Normally you do not get knowledge of this registrar account until you contact your current web hosting provider for your epp code.

Fig 1.0  Enter your domain name, the human verification code and then click on SUBMIT to continue

Fig 1.1  The registrar/reseller details for your domain name

In the above example I was preparing to transfer my yoingco.com domain name which was registered on August 3rd 2005 using registrar namecheap.com. My, old, web hosting provider registered yoingco.com for me when I bought one of their web hosting packages. Fast forward to two weeks ago (7th June 2009). I decided to cancel my, old, web hosting package purely because of price. Excellent company. Cannot fault them. However. I needed to cut back on my website expenses and therefore contacted my, old, web hosting provider for cancellation. They cancelled everything and told me that they had set up a namecheap account for me whereby I could login to it and get my EPP Code. Upon login of that namecheap account I found my name, address and so on to be in order. However. I noticed that the contact email address was not my email address but the web hosting provider's email address, making them the Administrative Contact - They are emailed with regards to domain name reregistration for example. This could of been done because I requested WHOIS protection for my domain name, which hides your details from the WHOIS service, but I do not think so. Regardless of WHOIS protection the email address should of been mine, but then again if you are new to the website game you naturally give control to your web hosting provider. Anyway. With access to my namecheap.com account I soon changed the email address! So now I was ready to get emailed my EPP Code.

Getting my domain name's EPP Code was simply a matter of clicking on a GET EPP CODE button, from within the control panel of my namecheap.com account, which was then emailed to me. After receiving that email I then logged out of my namecheap account. From there I logged into my new web hosting provider account and filled out their Domain Transfer form, which required the domain name I wanted transferring (yoingco.com) and its EPP Code. Within 24 hours yoingco.com was transferred, even though all the "Domain Name Transfer" emails from my new web hosting provider indicated that it could take up to 5 Days.

Once you have transferred a domain name to a new web hosting provider, unless requested otherwise, that domain name will normally be dormant. It will not be pointing/linking (redirecting) to your main domain (domain name/web space) until you request your web hosting provider to do so. Simply inform them that when the transfer is complete you would like the transferred domain name (i.e. yoingco.com) to be pointed/linked (redirected) to your main domain (i.e. websitecreationhelp.com) so that when someone types that transferred domain name into their web browser it goes to your main domain. This process is known as Parking A Domain Name (see PARKED DOMAIN above). The only reason for leaving this task to your web hosting provider is when you know absolutely nothing about the technicals, otherwise I would encourage you to carry on with this lesson (below) so that you know how easy it is to park your own domain name.

Begin by logging into your website's Control Panel and then find and click on the PARKED DOMAINS link (Fig 1.0) from within the DOMAINS section. This will take you to the Parked Domains control panel (Fig 1.1) where you can then set up your domain name for parking. In this example I have typed yoingco.com into the DOMAIN NAME edit box (Fig 1.1) to add that domain name to my new web hosting provider account (web hosting package). At this time, that domain name is dormant (not pointing anyway and not parked). It will only be parked when I click on the ADD button.

Fig 1.2  Click on the PARKED DOMAINS button to continue




Fig 1.3  Click on the ADD button to continue




Fig 1.4  The transferred domain name has been parked - Click on the GO BACK link to continue

With the transferred domain name now parked, anyone typing www.yoingco.com into their web browser will see www.yoingco.com in the address bar edit box but will also see the content of www.websitecreationhelp.com simply because the domain names are pointing/linking (redirecting) to the same web space (i.e. the same public_html folder).

The creation of the parked domain name was very easy due to the fact that the control panel, together with settings from your web hosting package, told the parked domain name which name servers (ip addresses/domain name servers) it should use. Where your web space lives on the internet basically. Forget the technicals! The reason why I point out the name servers, which are allocated to your web space (web hosting package), is because in other web hosting packages (control panels) you may be asked for specific name servers (two of them) as well as the domain name. For example. The name servers allocated to my web space are ns13.net-hosted.com and ns13.net-hosted.com. I know this because 1) my web hosting provider told me so in an email when I purchased my web space for websitecreationhelp.com and 2) because they are listed in my WHOIS record for www.websitecreationhelp.com. Because yoingco.com is being parked in the same web space it will have to use the same name servers as websitecreationhelp.com. My web hosting provider set up websitecreation.com and my web space for me, with those name servers, and when I was transferring yoingco.com they gave me the option of changing the name servers for yoingco.com (just in case I had two web spaces with them - If so, I could of pointed/linked yoingco.com to web space two's name servers for example whilst keeping websitecreationhelp.com pointed/linked to web space one for example). And this is the idea of separate domain names and separate web spaces. It allows you the flexibility to switch any one of your domain names to point/link to any one of your web spaces (as long as you know their name server details of course). So you can have your web spaces with one web hosting provider and your domain names with another and switch (point/link) between them.

Fig 1.5  Click on the MANAGE REDIRECTION link to continue

If you want to point/link (redirect) the parked domain name to a folder within your public_html folder, of your main domain name (web space), you can do so by clicking on the MANAGE REDIRECTION link (Fig 1.5 above). This will take you to the Parked Domain Redirection part of the control panel (below) where you then need to enter the URL (path name) of that folder. The URL is made up as http:// plus Main Domain Name (i.e. www.websitecreationhelp.com) plus Forward Slash / plus Folder Name (i.e. vistalessons plus another Forward Slash /.  So http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/. When you have entered the folder's URL into the URL edit box click on the SAVE button to continue.

Fig 1.6  Enter the URL of the folder where you want your parked domain name redirecting to and then click on the SAVE button to continue.

In the above example I have entered http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/ into the URL edit box because I want yoingco.com to point/link (redirect) to the vistalessons folder that resides in the public_html folder of www.websitecreationhelp.com. Within that vistalessons folder is an index web page, called index.htm, that yoingco.com will display whenever someone types www.yoingco.com into their web browser. If the index web page was not in that folder its content would be exposed - People would be able to view, and download, the other folders/files inside that vistalessons folder. So always put an index file inside the redirection folder.

After clicking on the SAVE button (Fig 1.6 above) your parked domain name will be redirected to the URL of your redirection folder. The next control panel window will notify you of this - Simply click on its GO BACK link to continue.

Fig 1.7  Click on the GO BACK link to continue

As explained above. When a domain name is parked it is pointing/linking to the same web space as your main domain name. So technically the two domain names are the same at this point, with the beauty of both domain names having their own unique identity inside a web browser's address bar edit box. However. When you redirect a parked domain name to a folder, within your main domain name's public_html folder, that parked domain name loses its unique identity. For example. In the above example yoingco.com starts out as parked only, so it displays as http://www.yoingco.com in a web browser, but as soon as it is redirected it becomes http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/ inside a web browser. Even if I redirect yoingco.com to http://www.yoingco.com/vistalessons/ it will still display as http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/. Why? Well it all comes down to Masking (hiding the true domain name) and whether or not your web hosting provider supports it.

Masking, also known as Cloaking and Forwarding, is the terminology used to describe an URL whose true identity is being hidden from a web browser's Address Bar edit box. For example. If your web hosting provider supports masking/cloaking/forwarding, which they might do but not switch on by default (therefore you may need to request it), it means you can have the URL of a redirected parked domain name for example (i.e. http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/) displayed as the URL of a main domain name (i.e. http://www.yoingco.com). So in the above example, if masking is supported and switched on, I could have the parked domain name yoingco.com displayed as yoingco.com even though it is being redirected to http://www.websitecreationhelp.com/vistalessons/.

One reason why a web hosting provider might not support masking/cloaking/forwarding, or switch it on by default, is because of security reasons. Phishing (Credit Card Fraud) websites for example often use masking to disguise their true website (domain name url) identity. Therefore, it is not a bad thing to have no masking support. In some ways it proves you are honest; You are allowing people to see the redirection URL. Basically. Masking started out as a good idea for the honest website owner but soon fell into the hands of the criminal.

An add-on domain name is identical to a redirected parked domain name, as described above, but with the main differences being that it has its own folder, its own control panel add-ons (i.e. ftp accounts and domain statistics) and its domain name displayed pure in a website browser. And because its domain name automatically points to its own folder by default there is no need to redirect the domain name. To set up an add-on domain name begin by clicking on the ADDON DOMAINS button in your control panel.

Fig 2.0  Click on the ADDON DOMAINS button to continue

When the Addon Domains control panel appears (below) fill in its form. The first thing the form asks you to do is put a domain name into the NEW DOMAIN NAME edit box, which should be the domain name you want to use as an add-on domain name (in this example: yoingco.com). Now instead of filling in the next two edit boxes on the form, just press the TAB keyboard key instead to have them automatically filled in for you. They will be filled with a FTP USER NAME and the DOCUMENT ROOT respectively. The ftp user name is created from the add-on domain (i.e. yoingco) and allows you ftp access to the ftp account that is created for your add-on folder, so that you can upload folders/files to it. The document root is the path name of the add-on folder, which is made up of public_html (from your root/main domain - i.e. websitecreationhelp) plus a forward slash plus your add-on domain name (yoingco.com). When those details are filled in, manually fill in the PASSWORD edit boxes with the password that will be used for all aspects of the add-on domain name. With the form filled in click on the ADD DOMAIN button to continue.

Fig 2.1  Click on the ADD DOMAIN button to continue




Fig 2.2  Click on the GO BACK link to continue

After clicking on the ADD DOMAIN button click on the GO BACK link of the standard success message that appears (above) to continue. Doing so will take you back to the main control panel where you may want to configure the ftp account that has just been set up for your add-on domain name. Read the how to create a ftp user account section for help on this.

All HTM, CSS, PHP and MySQL files in the websitecreationhelp.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, 2009. All Rights Reserved.    Email: John