Transfer Your Domain From Your Current Registrar using Sonic

Sonic provides domain name registration services to its customers.  You can transfer existing domains away from a current registrar and you can register new domain names.

Existing customers should login to Member Tools to order service.

What is a domain registrar?

A Domain Registrar is a company that allows you to register domain names.  Domain registrars maintain data associated with domain names.  This data includes the domain contact information and the name server records that allow the domain name to be visible across the Internet.  Domain registrars must be accredited by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

How does a registry transfer work?

Sonic can transfer your domain names from their current registrar to Sonic's OpenSRS system using our domain transfer tool.  If you have one or more domain names registered, transferring those domains to Sonic will provide you with substantial savings & better service.

No lost registration time:  You probably have registration time remaining with your current registrar for the domain names you want to transfer.  Sonic will migrate this remaining time to our system.  You will not lose any of the registration time you have already paid for.

Email Confirmations: After you initiate a domain transfer to Sonic, an email will be sent to the new owner contact provided during the order.  The new owner contact must respond to this confirmation email and supply the domain transfer authorization code (which can be obtained from your current registrar) in order for the transfer to complete.  The confirmation process along with other important transfer information will be provided to you after using the domain transfer tool.

Will there be any down time?

Any downtime associated with any type of change to a domain name revolves around one thing -- Name Server changes!  Therefore, if the name servers are not changing as part of the registrar transfer, there will be no down time.

Most Sonic customers are already using Sonic name servers and will experience zero downtime.  For those customers who have domains hosted elsewhere, you can choose to leave your name servers as they are during the transfer process.  In this case too, there will be zero down time.

Customers who are not using Sonic name servers will have the option to switch to Sonic name servers during the transfer process.  If you select this option, called DNS, the registry name server records for your transferring domain will be changed to Sonic name servers once the registrar transfer completes.

In these cases, there may be a period of name server propagation.  During this period, people who have recently visited your website or sent you email may have cached copies of your old name server data.  People using this cached data will still be using your old name servers even though the new name servers are in place. This cached data typically expires within 24 hours.

To minimize this propagation effect, it is a good idea to keep things up and running with your current hosting company for a few days.  That way, those few people using cached data will still be able to get to your old site and mail servers.  After 24 to 48 hours everyone will be using Sonic name servers and you can safely close your old hosting accounts. 

Sonic Transfer pricing: When you transfer a domain name from your existing registrar to Sonic, you will receive one additional year of registration.  This registry requirement ensures you have at least one year, after the transfer, before your domain name comes up for renewal.  The prices listed below cover the cost of the transfer plus the one additional year of domain name registration.  It's a great deal.