
Avoid downtime: Currently using GoDaddy's DNS? Switch DNS before transferring - moserware
http://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/582/83/how-to-transfer-a-domain-into-namecheap-without-a-huge-downtime
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andyking
Why so much love for Namecheap on here? As far as I can tell, they've simply
been in the right place at the right time and done some clever marketing in
response to GoDaddy's general idiocy.

But for a few days now, HN has almost read like a long ad for one domain
registrar that doesn't look like anything particularly special. Every other
link seems to go to Namecheap's blog, or some other page on their site.

Genuine question - I'm not trying to be a self-appointed site moderator or
cheerleading for some other company (although I do use Gandi myself), I'm just
genuinely interested as to why Namecheap, and not some other registrar, other
than the fact that Namecheap have jumped on this particular bandwagon.

~~~
stevenwagner
simply because they do not support SOPA, are actively listening to the demand,
they are cheap, and they have a good interface. That beats all the other
options I looked at. I considered gandi.net, but couldn't justify the extra
cost. The only feature I am missing right now is a registrar that accepts
bitcoins.

~~~
ThaddeusQuay2
"That beats all the other options I looked at."

Then you haven't seen all the options.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3388223>

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moserware
I posted this after making this "rookie" mistake myself: feel free to add
www.moserware.com -> 216.239.32.21 to your hosts file for the next few hours
until I'm given access to change the DNS settings :)

I was directed to this page only after the transfer started (and thus after I
could change this). Hopefully this might help others before you make the
switch.

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clyfe
If anyone needs a free DNS service, maybe try <https://entrydns.net/> that I
develop in my free time with a sysadmin friend.

~~~
pbreit
Also CloudFlare. You can use the DNS service without the security, performance
and caching features.

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mark_l_watson
Good call - I forgot to do this several days ago when I switched and it
introduced an unnecessary delay.

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pedoh
As far as I could tell, Namecheap doesn't allow uploading of zone files
(GoDaddy allows you to export your DNS settings in this format). It sure would
grease the slide for Namecheap (or any other provider, for that matter) if
they offered this feature.

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andrewhillman
Another option is using freedns via Afraid.org. I discussed how I found this
free dns provider here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3391687> I am
really impressed so far...

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tlack
I'm not 100% about the intricacies of how DNS works but is there no way for
them to automatically mirror your DNS settings? That would make this process
much much easier.

~~~
yahelc
I kind of assumed that's what they did; that's what CloudFlare does. Uh oh.

~~~
tlack
I guess not because one of their steps is "Copy all your domain settings (host
records, email settings etc) to our control panel." - who has time for that?
:)

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hosh
This never came up as an issue for me. I've been using DNSMadeEasy (that is, a
DNS service provider different from the domain registrar) for a while.

~~~
RossP
I signed up for DNSMadeEasy a few months ago so I could move away from my
Registrar's slow & complicated DNS servers. I'm glad I did, the price is
pretty good (I have 20 domains listed), their user interface is easy to use,
and the template & zone transfer options are very useful for doing your
migration.

Highly recommended.

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RKearney
Using GoDaddy for DNS is one of the biggest hosting mistakes you can make
(short of using GoDaddy for web hosting).

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drivebyacct2
I don't mean to be a jackass, but... duh? If you're using GoDaddy's
nameservers, it stands to reason that you'd need to configure the new ones
when namecheap isn't going to be able to point to a defunct GoDaddy account.

Gandi will even offer to mirror the DNS on import.

~~~
moserware
Agreed, it was a dumb mistake. I just wanted to let others know so they don't
have to suffer the consequences as well of multiple hours of downtime waiting
for things to finalize before you can change it.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Heh, sorry, didn't know this was spurred by a necessity. I'm one of those guys
that researches things to death before I do them, even if my "liability" is 3
low traffic family email accounts in a domain registrar migration.

