There is a change afoot in the Domain name charges driven by one of the big players to reduce your costs. Cloudflare have announced they will renew your domain names for what it costs them. No mark up for their customers who renew their domain names with them.
This may not be a huge amount of cost of a single domain, but as your portfolio expands these costs can mount up. Reducing the costs of running a website is key to keeping it running.
Free
Getting a cloudflare account is free. There is no need to pay for the cloudflare service if you don't want the added features. This free tier supports the low cost domain name registration and renewal fees.
Cloudflare
While cloudflare is most often associated as being a CDN, they also offer firewall and domain names to mention just a few of their skills. Get a free cloudflare account and start saving on your Domain Name Renewals.
You need to have your domain name on the cloudflare system by adding their name servers to your hosting.
Lock
Moving a domain name to cloudflare will require you to access the current domain name host and remove the 'transfer lock'. This is usually just a case of clicking a button to disable the transfer lock. With the lock disabled it will allow another provider to control the domain. Without the transfer lock disabled it will not be possible to move the domain.
Available
With the lock removed and the domain using the cloudflare DNS servers the domain names will be shown as available for transfer in the cloudflare interface.
EPP
The EPP Code is basically a password for a domain name. It is a security measure, ensuring that only the domain name owner can transfer a domain name. You will need it if you are wanting to transfer the domain to another registrar.
You will need to generate an EPP code to make the move happen. The EPP code is stored with the current domain name provider. You will need to copy and paste the short code into the form on cloudflare domain transfer page from the current domain name registrar.
Confirm Contact Info
Confirm the contact information for the domain registration is correct. The cloudflare domain name registration includes 'privacy' (WHOIS Redaction) for free. The public records are redacted when privacy is enabled. This can reduce the spam that the contact email address gets and helps to protect your privacy.
Time
There is delay before the domain names will move. This is part of the security as warning emails are sent and responses are made should they be required.
You can check on the process in the cloudflare interface and pay any fees due to renew the domains you have transferred.
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