Transferring Domain Names Away From 1and1

At first glance, this may seem like a strange article topic. However, if you're one of the many who have tried to get their domains away from 1&1 (aka: 1and1.com, Schlund & something-or-other, etc.), you'll be painfully aware of how much the process sucks the peel off a rotting lemon. Yeah, it's bad. There are a lot of steps and they seem to make it intentionally difficult to accomplish (conspiracy or just crappy programmin??)

So, the most recent "no way! That's just plain stupid!!" event in my last batch of domains being transferred to my preferred registrar (not mentioning it here -- contact me if you want suggestions) made me start writing this article to help folks get through the process a little smoother than I did at first.

Here we go...

Problem:
The 1and1 interface for domain handling will invariably make you touch each domain individually through a series of steps, rather than allow you to handle a batch of domains at once. There are plenty of other registrars with rockin' interfaces, so I know this is possible to do much better. In fact, my personal conspiracy theories come into play mainly because there are several things you can run batch commands on in the main interface, but not when it's to do something that would lead to helping to transfer that domain out. (Yes, some other simple things are also not batch-able, but the pain renders most acutely when you're trying to cancel a domain or change to manual billing, etc.) Initially, I ran through several steps for cancelling a domain before I found out that there was a whole other administrative site (!!) where you can handle some of these cancellation-type actions in batches. Greeeat... chalk my first attempts up to a waste of time.

Anyway... I am finally to the point where I really hate having my domains hosted there. The combination of poor user interface, very poor experiences with customer service (another story) and recent big price increases have all added up to me jumping ship... finally! The last straw was when I missed one step that arguably should have been automatically handled, which has lead me to have to start over (!!) with this long process for a bunch of domains. Suck!!

So I guess that's the problem: it's a pain to figure out all the steps needed to perform a domain cancellation and subsequent transfer out of 1&1's clutches. Even if I'm exaggerating a little, it's still unacceptable -- back when the prices were very cheap, it was tolerable, but now, I'm fed up. There are a couple ways to do some things that just shouldn't be so hard to find/understand. I went through 30 minutes of steps in the main interface to unlock each domain (allowing transfers) before I found out that there was another site interface where they could be done in a batch... that made me annoyed, obviously.

This Worked!:
I'm going to be as brief as possible (now that my lengthy ranting is done) and outline the steps to cancel a domain and then get it moved elsewhere. Please read through this list real quick first, since there are a couple possible shortcuts, depending on what you're wanting to do with the domain.

• First of all, you're not able to initiate domain cancellations or transfers from the normal administrative interface. They have a separate site for cancellations (fun!): http://cancel.1and1.com Go here and log in.
• This interface is very sparse and the wording of many things is (IMO) very easy to misunderstand. You're going to start by clicking on the tiny word link on the left menu bar called "Cancel".
• You'll see a list of your Packages with one of the options (I actually only have one) being "1&1 Instant Domain" showing an abbreviated list of your domains in that package. Click the title of that sucker.
• Select the second option here: "Cancel domains and/or additional items in this package" to get to a list of your domains to do selective cancellations. If you're cancelling the entire package, you're out of my jurisdiction since I haven't done that...yet. ;)
• Here you'll finally see a list of your domains (of course, there's no option to show more than the 10 items per page, so if you're like me, you now get to deal with paging... which, you guessed it... sucks. (I'm going to start a new bullet point and consider this one a rant. :P )
• First, you're going to chose the "Execute (on)" option, which is stating when you'd like to perform the action you're about to perform. For me, "Soon as possible" sounded great. Otherwise, you can select either the end of the current billing period or the end of billing period + 1 year... huh? So I guess you can execute the action after you renew the domain for one more year first??!? Strange, but whatever. "Soon as possible."
• Now the "Cancellation option" dropdown menu is available for the domain. Here are the options, which might be really handy for other needs, such as my other pet peave "How do you turn off auto-renew for 1&1 domains???"
• "Turn off auto-renewal and unlock" -- This seems right, were it not for the other option below to change provider. However, this is at least going to do what you need to do, which is stop auto-paying for the domain and unlock it for transfer elsewhere. Select this if you want to perform these actions, but keep reading to see if the other is better for your transfer project.
• "Turn off auto-renewal" -- Wish I had known about this one a long time ago since I tend to manage my domains manually (stupidly) since it makes me pay attention to how much I'm spending and what domains I have that aren't being used well, etc... yeah, I play psychological games with myself. What of it?? Anyway, it's nice to know that there's a place to turn this off, but I don't care anymore, since I'm getting the heck out!
• "End domain contract" -- Apparently you can just put a full stop on your domain with this. Stop paying for it, unlock it & let it go when it's expired?? I don't get it... wouldn't you just be able to turn off auto-renew and let it fade away? Whatever... I didn't choose this option, so I don't know more about it.
• "Change of provider" -- DING!! Winner. I found out after a couple of tries previously that this option will do everything you want to do to transfer out. It will end the contract at the Execute date and unlock it for transfer. It also initiates whatever magical elven procedures inside 1&1 headquarters that allows the domain to get moving down the road to another "provider", meaning "registrar". That's what threw me at first, since I think this should be named based on the industry standard of "domain registrar." Consider this option to read "Change of domain registrar" or "Transfer domain" or another better-worded option. I'm selecting this one.
• Here's where the paging complaints come in: There are two identical "Continue" buttons! Ha!! It turns out that the top button is to "continue to the next page", while the bottom one is "continue to the next step in the cancellation procedure." So, if you have more domains to find, click the top button, otherwise, hit the bottom one. Again with the poor interface, eh?
• Once you're done selecting all your domain options, you can click the bottom "Continue" button to move on. Note that if you're on the last page of your domain listing, there will only be one Continue button now, which is still mercifully in the same "bottom" position and is the button to move on. You'll just notice the "top" button missing now. (Schlund, please label the buttons better, huh?)
• By the way... don't wait very long before doing stuff on that site or you'll get logged out. Hurray!! That's right, while I was typing out these instructions for you, I was bumped out and now I have to start over yet again! I hope you're satisfied. You better get some use out of all this!! :P
• *grumble, grumble, entering everything in again, rabble, rabble, rabble*
• Now you're looking at a list of the "Auth Codes for Your Domains" which are the authorization codes needed during the transfer process to prove you're the domain owner/controller. Copy this list and paste it into a text document, spreadsheet or whatever you'd like. (To copy, drag a selection around the text from Auth Code down to the last listed item and type Ctrl-C on your keyboard.) Now, open a text editor and paste (Ctrl-V) the list so you can copy/paste all those codes later... yeah, you're going to have to do that.
• You're not done yet! (I made that mistake once.. you'll have to start over if you do!) The "Continue" button has slyly moved over to the left side of the screen for some stupid reason of non-continuity, so track it down and click it.
• Read the screen to see that you'll be getting a bunch of email, etc. Also note that you should heed their warnings about making all DNS changes to your domains before cancelling, if that's relevant to you. I had taken care of all that previously, so didn't need to worry about this.
• Click "Finish" button or go back to... no, wait! You can't actually change anything by going back from here, even though the process isn't completed!! Previously, there was a "Back" button on every page and you could go back and do changes, but from here, all you can do is go back to the Auth Code page... grrrrrr. Why not a Back button on there?? I think that's a bug. Whatever... moving on. /me clicks Finish.
• Whew! Finally done with those crappy UI pages. Go check your email and follow directions when you get those messages. I got the initial email telling me I was getting more email, but it tends to take a while to get the others with the confirmation links. Go do something else for a while and keep checking email. I'll start another section for dealing with the email and other.

Confirmation Email stuff:
After about four hours, I received my "Confirmation required to complete your cancellation request" email. There is a single link in this email that will confirm the cancellation. The loaded page is uneventful: "Thank you. Your cancellation request has now been processed." Hurray.

Now, you're moving into the territory of whichever domain registrar you're transferring to, so exact processes will vary greatly from here out. For me, I initiated the transfers at the new registrar by entering a list of domains into their online form. From there, email is sent for each domain to its respective registrant. Each email had a confirmation link, taking me to a page where I had to enter the code from the confirmation email, as well as the "Auth Code" I got from 1&1 earlier. Simple copy/paste of these bits and the transfer is underway!

That's about it. Long list of stuff, but maybe helpful to some. Good luck!

• [soon]