It’s no secret that Godaddy has been getting more complaints in the past few years regarding the quality of their services in addition to their expensive prices when it comes to charging for all their products, and that includes: Domain names, Emails, Privacy domains, SSL certificates, etc…
Compared to its competitors, they offer affordable prices. Luckily, Bluehost does that, and they offer some of these services for free.
In this tutorial, we will see how to transfer domain from Godaddy to Bluehost.
Part 1: How to Transfer Domain from GoDaddy to Bluehost
Before you start on your domain transfer, you must meet the following requirements so you can be able to proceed with the transfer:
- The remaining time in your domain name’s expiration date must be more than 15 days.
- The first registration date of your domain name is more than 60 days ago.
- You can transfer your domain only if it has one of these extensions: com, net, org, info, co, us, and biz.
Part 2: Transfer your domain from Godaddy
Step 1. Get hosting with Bluehost
The first thing you will need, in case you haven’t done it already, is to buy your own hosting from Bluehost.
You can get it at a 67% discount for $2.95/month. The regular price is $3.95/month, but using our Promo link will offer you our dear blog readers an exclusive discount for $2.95/month.
Here are a few reasons why we recommend Bluehost as a good hosting provider:
- Officially recommended by WordPress.org
- Free domain name
- Free SSL certificate
- Beginner friendly
- Affordable price – only $2.95/month with a 30-day Money-back guarantee
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Multiple data center locations (USA, India, China)
If you would like to know more about what it has to offer, here is our review on Bluehost.
Step 2. Open domain settings
Inside your Products page, choose among the list, the domain name you wish to transfer and click on “Manage”
Step 3. Check your Whois contact information
Next, you need to check if your contact information is correct. This is vital because based on the given credentials, this will ensure that you receive the authorization code to the specified email address and keep your domain under the name you specified.
So make sure everything is right.
Step 4. Disable Privacy domain protection
Now, you need to disable your privacy protection for your domain name.
Assuming you already purchased privacy protection for your domain, in that case, you will have to click on “Remove Privacy” which you can find right under your contact information.
Step 5. Change Name servers
During this transfer process, if you want to minimize the downtime as much as possible. We recommend you to change your Godaddy name servers to point to Bluehost.
You can do that by entering the following name servers, in your domain DNS settings, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll find a section where you can change your name servers like it is shown in the picture below:
NOTE: Do not do this unless you already have moved your website files and database in Bluehost. Once the transfer process is initiated, you cannot change the name servers during that time.
Step 6. Unlock domain name
After that, it’s time to unlock your domain name. You can simply do this by switching your locking status from ON to OFF.
Please note that for this change to take effect, it takes between 2 to 5 minutes.
Now, that our domain is unlocked. You are ready to get your authorization code.
Before you do this, double check one last time if you have the right email address specified in your contact information.
This is where Godaddy will send you the authorization code for the transfer.
Press “Get authorization code”, and you will shortly receive an email containing your EPP authorization code.
NOTE: Sometimes depending on the account type, the option “Get authorization code” might not be visible. If that’s the case, you can just proceed by clicking on “Transfer domain away from Godaddy”.
After you click on the link, you’ll be taken to another page, proceed afterward to the next page, and your authorization code will be sent to your email, and you’ll also have the option to view your authorization code from that same page.
The email should look something like this:
Bulk domain transfer (optional)
Another way to do this, if you wish to unlock multiple domains at once and get all their authorization codes in a spreadsheet, go to “My products” and click on “Manage All”.
You’ll see next a table grid containing all your domains, check the ones you wish to unlock, then press “Export” as it is shown in the image below:
Next, you will get a popup where you can select the authorization code checkbox, so they can be included within the spreadsheet.
After that it’s done, you will shortly receive an email containing your CSV file with a list of your selected domain names and their authorization codes.
Part 3: Transfer your domain to Bluehost
Great job on completing the steps with Godaddy! Let’s move on to the Bluehost transfer steps.
Step 1. Get started with Bluehost domain transfer
Now with Bluehost. Start by connecting to your account. Click on “Domains”
Depending on where you were initially, you might get a different page layout for your domain manager. But overall, they are both fine.
Here are two images showing you where you can access the transfer page on both versions of the domains page:
Step 2. Add your domain name
Enter the domain name you wish to transfer
After entering the domain name, you’ll be asked for your EPP authorization code. Add the code you received in your email from Godaddy.
NOTE: The authorization code is the safety measure that protects your domain name, and ensures that nobody would steal or buy your domain while it’s unlocked.
Step 4. Transfer Settings
In the contact information section, you can choose the credentials that will display as the contact information for your domain.
NOTE 1: We highly recommend that you get a privacy domain protection to protect your personal data related to your domain from being viewed in Whois by the public.
NOTE 2: If you have specified as your residency a country that is a member of the European Union (EU), in that case, the privacy domain protection will be given to you by default for free.
Step 5. Domain name transfer Payment
Now to the last step of our domain transfer process.
At the checkout page, make sure to select at least 1 year as quantity for your domain.
Step 6. Check the progress
Usually, the transfer takes between 5-7 days. Meanwhile, you can check your progress by going to Domain Manager then on Transfer EPP under the details, you can see the current status of your domain transfer
Lastly, once your transfer is complete, you should receive an email from Godaddy notifying you about the success of the domain transfer.
Conclusion
Well done on completing the job. Now you realize that it’s not as hard it seemed the first time.
If you run into any troubles during this process, let us know in the comments so we can help you get through it.
Also, we would like to add, you should also consider moving your emails as well. There is no point to keep paying Godaddy for that service when you can have the same service with unlimited email accounts for free with Bluehost.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How long does it takes to transfer the domain name?
It usually takes between 24-48 hours to complete the transfer. If you unlock your domain without changing the nameservers then the transfer might take up to 7 days.
Is Bluehost better than GoDaddy?
Yes, Bluehost is much better overall in terms of performance, pricing, speed, and offered features.
How much does Bluehost cost?
You can check Bluehost pricing plan here.
Does this process work if you are using WordPress.org through Bluehost?
Yes, it works.
If I transfer my domain to Bluehost, Can I keep my emails at GoDaddy?
Yes, you can, if you want to. You can maintain your MX records pointing to GoDaddy or any other hosting provider (you can do that from Bluehost cPanel), and the Host records should be pointing to Bluehost IP address.
Are the Nameservers the same across all Bluehost types of web hosting?
Yes, they are the same in dedicated hosting and cloud hosting. ns1.bluehost.com / ns2.bluehost.com
What is the best way to migrate my website?
You can use the All-in-one WP migration plugin, if your website total size is in Gigabytes then you might want to consider transferring your files using SSH.
