Transferring Domain from GoDaddy to PorkBun

[MLPTA_Admin]

I would like to transfer my domain from one registrar (GoDaddy) to another registrar (PorkBun). I have Google Workspace as well as SquareSpace.  I am trying to see what needs or will need to be done at the point when the transfer goes through.

What is the process to reconfigure Name Server and DNS settings?  Since it is currently "connected", it won't let me "reconnect" - and I'm not sure I want to "disconnect" my only domain. We do have a secondary domain I could set up so that it could hold on to the workspace if that helps.  And if so, should I set up the second domain as an alias or a secondary domain?

Hopefully someone has gone through this process and provide good insight.

Thanks!

[MLPTA_Admin · Accepted solution]

I got this response from Gemini:

To transfer your domain registration to a new third-party registrar while using it as your primary domain in Google Workspace, you need to transfer the domain registration to the new registrar and then update your Google Workspace settings to reflect the change. This involves several steps, including verifying ownership at the new registrar and ensuring your DNS records are correctly configured. 

My only concern is that last step about verifying ownership at the new registrar - where would that option show up in the management console?

[KAM]

@MLPTA_Admin What do you hope to gain by moving?  There can be a lot of disruption to do this especially if you are using the registrars for your nameservers.

If you were a corporation and you asked me to do this, I would do the following:

A) Set up DNS on a 3rd party DNS server identical to the current zone

B) Change DNS to go to the DNS servers in A

C) Unlock the domain and get the EPP code

D) Use the EPP code to do a transfer to the new registrar

E) Decide whether to move DNS to the new registrar or not and deprecate the 3rd party service

Without the steps to use an exterior DNS, you could end up with outages while everything transfers around.  If you are saving a few bucks by doing the transfer, I would say it's pennywise/poundfoolish.

-KAM

[MLPTA_Admin]

Thanks for your response Kam.  We are a nonprofit, so the goal is to reduce expenses.  I went ahead and did the transfer in the evening, after realizing that the transition requires setting only one DNS record for Google Workspace and for Squarespace (our host) it was an easy unlink, relink. 

[MLPTA_Admin]

One other thing, I had also considered your proposal to setting up the domain on a 3rd party DNS (Cloudflare), but many of the DNS settings were locked, since we had set up SquareSpace using a GoDaddy pre-configuration profile, which kept the name servers using Godaddy nameservers, which meant I would have needed to potentially take down the website even if transitioning to a 3rd party DNS server, so I realized it was going to be the same potential pain regardless of the transition plan.