Hi guys

I am really hoping for some clarification here. A client wishes to get my firm to take over management of their domain name portfolio. This will require a registrar transfer. The registrar we wish to use states that we will need to provide them with zone files for each of the domains so that the domains can be hosted on their servers. This apparently will allow the domains to continue to point at the servers where the website resides and enable email to still work. I have performed registrar transfers on many many domains on behalf of clients and have never been told I had to provide zone files - very confused!

Please can someone explain the difference between web hosting and domain hosting? The registrar appears to imply that it will not be necessary to move the websites to their servers but that they need to host the domain on their servers so that we can make DNS changes.

Please explain?! Thanks guys!

EDITED - Maybe I am not making myself properly clear on this, 'cos I can see people looking but nobody answering! I guess what I am getting at is this - is it the case that a site can be hosted on different servers to those shown in the WHOIS entry? Does the WHOIS refer only to where the DOMAIN is hosted and not a live site? And following on from this, is there any way of telling definitively where a website is being hosted from the WHOIS? Cheers guys!

I'll take a stab at answering your question, but why do the domains need to be moved? If you transfer them to another registrar the client is going have to pay a reg fee for each one, unless you have some kind of special deal with the new reg. In addition, you may be able to "manage" the domains where they are now if you use software like what namefollow.com offers. It can download the current domain list info from a number of different registrars into one place. I just found this last week and do not know how well it works.

Ok, the registrar has the information that is specific to the domain, and has the information on where the zone file for that domain is located (the name servers). The name server have more details like www and MX records for mail.

When you transfer a domain, most registrars just see what the information is now and duplicate that on their system. This allows the transfer to be pretty trouble-free and should not cause any problems because the information stays the same. Registrars that don't do this (there are some!) cause your website and email to fail until you go in an update the name servers to be what they should.

I can go into my reseller account and set up a new domain and if I use a special URL or change my hosts file to point to the server, I can access the site there, but no one else will. You can say the WEBSITE is hosted at that point, but not the domain.

Changing the name servers to be what they are for my reseller account, then the domain will correctly show the web site in a browser.

I think "hosting a domain" is not really correct usage, since you are really "pointing" a domain to an IP address where a site is located. But this expression is used generally to describe the practice of setting up a domain with a single page to either "park"it for later use, or to show ads and collect revenue from any possible traffic.

So, I don't know the details of your situation, but I would not move the domains from one registrar to another unless there is a good reason to do so, and any registrar that requires the zone files from you sounds like a beginner...

I'm going to take a stab at this as well, even though I'm not fully sure I understand it.

First off, I've never heard of a registrar asking for zone files. Ever. This seems pointless and needlessly complicated. I'm not an expert in how domains "work" as such, but I was always under the impression that the host created the zone files themselves, not the registrar.

A registrar transfer is merely a process by which a new registrar takes over the domain registration itself. It has nothing to do with zone files or anything like that. All other information should be left intact, unless there's a reason to change it...in which case, you change that information AFTER the transfer has taken place.

Next thing: telling where a site is hosted from the WHOIS. Yes, it is possible, but it depends on how the nameservers of your host are configured. Some hosts offer what is referred to as "anonymous DNS", or two nameservers that don't directly reference your host.

e.g. Hostcompany.com could use ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatedns.com for their name servers. A WHOIS lookup on privatedns.com might reveal something like "Private DNS, LLC."

It sounds like, and I'm not sure on this, that what your registrar wants to do is to set up a domain forward to the existing host. If that's the case, this will accomplish NOTHING and Christian_SEO is right...this is a beginner move at best.

You should be able to leave the WHOIS information intact other than the registrar. Any registrar that requires this or anything else to be changed on transfer...well, they suck.

www.godaddy.com (there's an okay one.)
www.sibername.com (a bit pricey but at least they allow PayPal, which is good in a pinch.)

There are a whole bunch of others that would do you just fine. You just need to do a little more homework, that's all.

Hmm, thanks for your comments. I said the same thing to these guys - I've done hundreds of registrar transfers and never had to provide this info and there has been no interruption of service. However, they tell me that if they don't have this info set up on their servers in advance of the transfer, email etc will be lost...

This registrar covers all ccTLDs as well as generics and clients have many obscure ones - and as this is rare and clients want to be able to access the domains to make changes to the DNS it makes sense to have them all in one place. The main reason for moving the portfolio is COST - they are currently with one of the massive corporate registrars and have to pay an annual fee for each domain just for the privilege of allowing it to be maintained on their records. So theer would be no benefit to them to be paying me on top of this fee and they are very unhappy with the general service they have received so far as well.

Anyway, thanks for your comments guys! May need a rethink...