A domain transfer can be one of two things (or both) :

First, the transfer of the authority for a domain listing from one registrar to another. If you're not sure what a registrar is, please read the Vineyard.NET Domain Registrar FAQ.

Second, the updating of nameserver information to let other computers connected to the Internet determine where a domain is located.

Additionally, it may also involve updating contact information for the domain listing and replicating services for the domain (a website or mail service, for example) at the new hosting provider.

Vineyard.NET prefers that all the domains it hosts be registered with a specific registrar. We do this not to make like more complicated for our customers but, in the long run, because we think it makes life easier.

Specifically, the registrar we use (OpenSRS) provides Vineyard.NET with a way to update domain registrations programatically. This is valuable because sometimes we change the "location" of a domain, for example by moving a website/domain from one machine to another, and we need to tell the registrars about the changes: This domain is now over here, so when someone on the Internet asks this is now the correct "address".

We would never be able to keep up if we had to this task, and others like it, by hand. After all, this is the kind of thing that we invented computers for!

So, we ask that all domains hosted with Vineyard.NET be registered with OpenSRS - hence the transfer request you may have already received, or that will be sent to you if a transfer request is made by you or on your behalf.

We would prefer that you transfer the registration from the current registrar to OpenSRS, however you are under no obligation to do so. Even if you would like to transfer your domain, there are restrictions on how soon a newly created domain may be transferred from one registrar to another.

If your domain is registered with a registrar other than OpenSRS Vineyard.NET will take no resposibility for updating your domain. We will not update contact information or domain name servers. We will not take any action to notify you that your domain is set to expire, nor can we guarantee that our web-based interface for updating registrar-related domain information will function.

Vineyard.NET will make sure to post updated domain related information to its website in a timely fashion. However, we will not be able to contact you individually when changes occur.

This is a good news, bad news situation.

The bad news is that when a domain is transfered from one registrar to another, the domain is registered for an additional year. This way, the original registrar still gets to make some money even though it is losing a customer.

The good news is that the extra year is tacked on the existing expiration date -- if the domain is set to expire in June 2003, it will now expire in June 2004.

This way the new registrar still gets to make some money even though it has taken on the responsibilty of maintaining a domain for the (n -1) years that it hasn't been paid for. The assumption is that the new customer will like their new registrar so much that they'll just keep on renewing with them.

So, the additional moneys that you will be billed are for the extra year that your domain is now registered for.

Again, the bad news is that there are annual fees associated with domain registrations. The good new is that they are less than they were in the past when there was only a single registrar.

Domain transfer happen for one of a few possible reasons:

You have an existing domain that you would like to move from another web-host to Vineyard.NET.

You have a domain already hosted with Vineyard.NET and registered with another registrar that you would like to register with OpenSRS.

You have a domain already hosted with Vineyard.NET that is set to expire and you would to move it OpenSRS at the same time that you renew the registration. Note: that there are some time restrictions when doing this sort of thing. Currently, you must submit the request to transfer from one registrar to another atleast (2) weekes before a domain is set to expire.

Please contact your reseller. They will assist you and perform the necessary set up for transfering your domain to Vineyard.NET

If you already have a domain hosted by Vineyard.NET and you would to transfer the registration to OpenSRS, you can use the edit-domain account administration page to submit a request.

Transfering a domain to Vineyard.NET consists of (3) stages:

First the request is sent to the registrar you are transfering your request to. The registrar then sends a confirmation email to the administrative contact for the domain.

When transferring a domain to OpenSRS, the administrative contact will receive an email containing a link to webpage and a time-limited login. The administrative contact will need to visit the webpage and confirm the request to transfer the domain.

Next, the new registrar will submit the request to the old registrar who will contact the administrative contact, again, with their own request to approve the transfer.

Keep in mind that when you are transferring a domain away from a registrar, they don't actually want to lose you as a customer and any notices they send to the administrative contact may sometimes be less than obvious. The registrar will send a request for approval but it may be sent in a message that, on the surface, doesn't appear to have anything to do with the transfer. When you have requested a domain transfer, please make an extra effort to watch for email from the old registrar.

If the old registrar does not receive a reply from the administrative contact within (9) days, the request is considered to be cancelled.

At this point, most people would consider it safe to assume that the transfer is complete and that all that remains are few formalities. This is not an incorrect assumption, however it has been Vineyard.NET's experience that some registrars will refuse transfer requests for reasons that elude common sense or, from time to time, for no apparent reason at all.

Most domain transfers proceed without incident but it is very important that you keep a copies of any correspondence from the old registrar until such a time as the transfer has been completed. Often atleast one of the notices you will receive will contain some sort of transaction ID without which the support people at the old registrar will be wholely unresponsive.

Once the domain registration has been successfully transfered to the new registrar, the Vineyard.NET hostmaster is notified and, if necessary, will submit a request to update the namesevers for the domain. Once this information has been submitted to the registrar, it generally takes a day or two for the new data to filter out across the Internet. Note: in a few rare cases, it can take as long as (2) weeks for the changes to propagate. Most organizations that run DNS servers also cache their lookups to lessen the load on their servers and minimize unnecessary overall traffic on the network itself. Generally the caches are refreshed them every (8-24) hours, however there are no requirements that prevent an organization from waiting longer.

A domain is a shortcut that makes it easier for human to identify locations on the Internet. For example, the domain name "vineyard.net" maps to the location (IP address) 204.17.195.91. Some people think that the latter is easier to remember than the latter, but they continue to be a minority.

A registrar is a private company that has a license to keep track of where a domain name actually points to on the Internet: e.g. this domains lives over at that hosting provider.

There used to be just one registrar, named Network Solutions (now VeriSign). They had a monopoly on domain registrations during the 90s which was finally taken away from them a couple years ago.

If you are still not sure what a registrar is, please read the Vineyard.NET Domain Registrar FAQ for a more thorough discussion.

A hosting provider is also a private company, like an ISP like Vineyard.NET, which makes sure that a domain actually "does" something once it's been pointed to and maintains the services (for example, a web server) necessary for the task.

A nameserver is a program that maps domain names to IP addresses.

A nameserver may maintain a cache of other names and addresses on the Internet but, more importatntly, it maintains the map of domains that are hosted by a local machine or network.