How would this work? : Domain name transfer question

[Draeger]

Hi folks,

I have done a website for a small local legal firm.

They have their name already registered as a domain name with a company :-

http://www.colloquium.co.uk/

This company registered the domain name for them but up until now all the small business has used it for is email, they have never had a website before.

Now, I have the site finished and ready to go.

I'm not even sure how to ask the question, but I will try and not confuse anyone!!.

How do I or the legal firm go about transfering the domain name so I can host it on my webspace?.

The thing is, although I have generous bandwith in my package with EUKHost, the legal firm receive at least 100 emails per week.

I would rather the current company ( Colloquium ) kept the email side of things going through them, but allowed me to have the domain name and use my webspace to actually host the website itself.

Is that possible?.

I am asking to find out some of the "ins and outs" of this before the senior partner in the legal firm calls Colloquium and asks about it. Want to have some info on it all before he does that.

Colloquium state on their website that "Our policy is to transfer ownership of the domain to you once the domain is paid for".

I'm not quite sure exactly what that implies and to be honest, the partners in the legal firm are rather computer illiterate, so they have no idea either. I asked if they had details of anything regarding this and was met with a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders.

What is worrying me is that I did a Whois on the domain name of the legal firm and it came up with this:-

Registrar: COMPUTER SERVICES LANGENBACH GMBH DBA JOKER.COM
Whois Server: whois.joker.com
Referral URL: http://www.joker.com
Name Server: NS.COLLOQUIUM.CO.UK
Name Server: SNS.COLLOQUIUM.CO.UK
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 29-dec-2006
Creation Date: 09-jan-2003
Expiration Date: 09-jan-2008

What exactly does "Status: clientTransferProhibited" mean?



Any info appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[stoofa]

Answer to the last question first.
Basically it means the domain is totally locked.
The domain cannot be deleted, renewed, transfered or updated until it has been unlocked.
The current owners of the domain should be able to log into the Control Panel for the domain and unlock it should they wish to make any kind of change.
Once changes have been made it can be locked again.
I'm assuming the company who have registered the domain name have got full control over it? Quite probably a Control Panel they can log into?
Most importantly, the domain name is in your customers name - this is important and if it isn't then that needs sorting out ASAP.

Now to the main question, there is nothing to stop you splitting the work of e-mail and web hosting between numerous companies.
It's all down to DNS - which can get quite complicated, but doesn't need to.
If all you want to do is run the website on your hosting package then you simply need to ask colloquium.co.uk to add an A record to the DNS for the domain name pointing at the IP address of your hosting package.
Something similar to:

www A xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address for where their website will be.
This means that colloquium.co.uk will continue to run DNS for the domain and more importantly will continue to run the e-mail side of things.
Any www traffic aimed at the domain name will be sent to your hosting package where you will of course have created them an account and their website will have been uploaded.

There are alternative ways of doing things, but this would be by far the easiest way if the company who owns the domain currently has fully working e-mail and doesn't particularly want to change the way that works.
colloquium.co.uk will know how to add the DNS record, you just need to make sure you give them the right IP address.

 

[Draeger]

Thanks for the info m8, appreciated.

Looks reasonably straightforward, I'll get the senior partner to give them a call on Monday next week and see if he can get the ball rolling.

Thanks again.