Transferring Domains is Apparently Something Only Geniuses can Accomplish

If you’re reading this then my Dynamic Name System (DNS) changes have finally propagated. Let me tell you that something as simple as a domain name transfer is apparently very difficult to do. Looking at it I can’t imagine where the difficulty is, you simply take the settings from one registrar and copy them to another. Apparently that part is very difficult.

When I first registered this name I did it through Google act as a reseller for eNom and GoDaddy. Basically when you register with Google you get a 50/50 chance on which registrar you’re setup with, I got eNom. Since then I’ve been registering my domain names through Hover, mainly because I far prefer their management interface and have been trying to move my stuff away from Google (nothing really wrong with Google but the amount of control they had over my digital life was scary). The final move was taking this domain and moving it over to Hover where all my other domains rest.

When I’m at work I usually connect to my Virtual Private Network (VPN) server so I have access to my home network. This morning when I tried to connect I kept getting failures and noted that I could access other websites. There were only two real possibilities here, either my server was down or my domain name was fucked up. Doing a quick nslookup showed that it was my domain name, somehow Hover lost all of my settings.

I changed the settings this morning only to be informed by Jeff this evening that the changes still hadn’t propagated (thanks Jeff for brining that to my attention). Apparently logging back into my Hover account and reapplying my settings has worked because the site is back up again, at least it will be once the DNS changes propagate to everybody (Jeff has already informed me that the site is accessible to him so I know things are all finagled correctly this time).

The lesson to be learned from this is that transferring domains from one registrar to another is either more difficult than it appears, Hover’s employees are drinking on the job, or Hover has monkeys working there instead of actual humans.