Web Design VernonCancelling Wix or GoDaddy without losing your address
The expensive mistake is cancelling first. Your plan, your address and your email can all be tied to one account, and cancelling the plan can take the others with it.
Go in this order.
1. Find out what you actually have
Sign in to the account and find out which of these you pay for, and which the builder runs for you:
- The plan that hosts the site.
- The domain (yourbusiness.ca).
- Email that ends in your domain (you@yourbusiness.ca).
If your business email ends in your domain, find out who runs it before you touch anything. When the domain moves, email can stop.
2. Check the expiry date
Look up your domain at lookup.icann.org and read the expiry date. If it's close, renew it first. A domain that lapses can be taken by someone else.
3. Move the domain, then cancel the plan
To move the domain to a registrar you choose:
- At the current company, unlock the domain. The setting is called "transfer lock" or "registrar lock".
- Ask for the authorization code. Some companies call it a transfer code or EPP code. It's case-sensitive, so copy and paste it.
- At the new registrar, start a transfer, type the domain and paste the code.
- Watch the email address on the account. The approval email goes there, and if it's an old address the transfer times out.
- Approve it, and check the site still loads.
Two limits to know. A domain registered or transferred in the last 60 days can't be moved. And the new registrar will reject the request while the lock is still on.
Only after the domain shows up in the new account, cancel the old plan.
4. The site
You can't pick up a Wix or GoDaddy site and move it to another builder. Your words, photos and prices come with you, and the design is rebuilt. That's the part I do. The first rebuild is free, and the new site goes on the address you've just moved, so customers see no gap.
Text me the domain and where it lives now. I'll tell you what to move first.
