Alls,
currently, a lot of my stuff is hosted on a German webhoster who also manages my domain names for me. More and more pondering to axe this and move to micro.blog for hosting (maybe saving the webhoster costs for micro.blog Premium), I’m looking into some guidance on how to handle domains when I cut ties with my web hoster. Has anyone ever done that, are there any caveats or aspects I definitely want to consider? What’s the best way of doing that?
Thanks and best regards,
Kristian
I’m in a similar situation. I see that I can transfer my domain (ayjay.org) from my existing hosting provider to micro.blog, but I’m not totally clear what will happen when I do that. For instance, will everything I have posted at ayjay.org and blog.ayjay.org continue to be online? (I assume so, but it’s not the sort of thing I want to have any uncertainty about.)
Also, I see that if I do such a transfer I should "take a screenshot of [my] previous DNS records, but I don’t know what those are or how to find them. At my current hosting provider I can see “Zone records” but I am not sure that’s what I need.
I am a simple humanities caveman; your digital world confuses and frightens me.
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First, let me clarify that if you want Micro.blog to host your domain name, you don’t need to transfer the domain registration. It is often easier to transfer it, but if you have a lot of DNS records at your current domain registrar (for things like email) sometimes it is easier to edit the DNS records to point to Micro.blog instead just for the blog hosting. That’s why we say take a screenshot of your settings, just in case they need to be recreated in Micro.blog.
Every registrar is a little different, but there should be a screen somewhere that has a list of records with types like “A”, “CNAME”, “MX”, etc. That’s the important info.
So there are essentially two paths:
- Edit your DNS record for yourdomain.com to use Micro.blog. This help page has the IP address you need to enter for this.
- Transfer all your DNS records to Micro.blog by using the domain registration page in Micro.blog. This usually takes a few days to process and requires inputing an auth code from your previous registrar. You’ll also want to make sure your domain is “unlocked” at the registrar before initiating the transfer.
If you choose to edit the DNS records, let us know if you have any questions because it can sometimes be confusing what to edit. After editing, you’ll also need to enter the domain name in the Design page on Micro.blog.
As for the current blog at your previous blog hosting provider, usually when the domain is switched, you’ll still have your content available at another subdomain, like yourblog.wordpress.com or yourblog.dreamhost.com or whatever it is.
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Thanks, Manton!
What follows here may be useful if you’re dealing with other people who are as ignorant as I am.
- I got an authorization key and initiated the transfer before you replied, so I did not know about unlocking the domain at the registrar. So I don’t know what will happen or won’t happen. (Probably that information should be provided on the page where you authorize a transfer, so people who like me don’t know the ins and outs won’t initiate and pay for a transfer that may not work.)
- I was not aware that my site has a registrar as opposed to a hosting provider.
- After some googling I discovered that my registrar is ENOM, INC., an organization or company that I have never heard of and have no idea how to contact.
- So I am assuming that the transfer will fail, but I have no idea what to do to fix it. I suspect that I’ll end up having to continue with my current hosting provider, even though they’ve become pretty problematic, and also pay for my Premium micro.blog account.
- If I ever can manage to get the transfer done, I expect that I will do all my blogging at micro.blog, but if micro.blog is then hosting my WordPress blog (blog.ayjay.org), would I be able to edit it as I have in the past?
I’m sure people who are more internet-literate than I am handle this kind of thing easily, and probably several times a day, but I am totally lost.
If you registered through your hosting provider who uses a third-party, you will need to contact and deal with them to facilitate the domain transfer.
Once you are registered with Micro.blog, you can edit your DNS settings to point to your Wordpress blog.
Hosting: there’s a physical box somewhere connect to the internet that has an IP address which is accessible to the world exposing your website.
Domain registration: someone who you have bought a pretty name from versus an IP address from. (they handle the paperwork to make that pretty name yours)
DNS Records: typically done with your domain registrar, this information tells the internet “When you type in this pretty name, actually go ahead and talk to server at this IP Address, which represents hosting place.”
That’s roughly how it goes. Many people are confused because hosting providers will often include a domain with your hosting or offer that as an upsell service, but they are and can be distinct.
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The only thing here I didn’t get was the provider/registrar distinction, but in any case I’m still not sure how to proceed. We’ll see what I hear from both Manton and my other hosting provider.
Are these not the steps you need?
Now that your blog post revealed your host, this was the first thing I found when Googling “transfer domain from Relclaim Hosting”
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Yes, that was all done straightaway. It’s the easy part!
In order to continue to have a separate Wordpress blog (if you don’t want to import the wordpress blog into micro.blog), you will need to have a new Wordpress host. Once the domain transfer completes, you can point your domain to that new host from within Micro.blog (as well as have your micro.blog at your domain).
Thanks @manton and all for outlining. I’ve done this procedure before, elsewhere, but the ability to take an auth code to micro.blog and fully transfer the domain over here from the current registrar was my missing piece. 
As I take from your writing, editing DNS records is at least doable in micro.blog? I’m currently using this for DNS validation of Bluesky and (to some extent) Nostr accounts, so I’ll have to move this over too then, somehow.
Yes, exactly. Plus, not in all cases webhosting providers make the procedure to migrate a once-registered domain elsewhere really clear in their documentations, as far as I learnt…