Hello, I’ve had a Wix website, and I’ve got a .com domain name registered with them. Can’t afford to stick with them so will be trying to run a site off of a Raspberry Pi. I just need to figure out what to do with the domain name, looks like they make it easy to transfer - https://support.wix.com/en/article/transferring-your-wix-domain-away-from-wix-2477749
From what I’ve read I’ve gathered that I need to find a registar to transfer the domain to, something to do with ICANN and such. I don’t need to buy anything I guess(?) as I already have the domain, I just need to have it registered. I still don’t fully understand how all this works, clearly.
What company is recommended for this?
Thanks much.
I need to find a registar to transfer the domain to, something to do with ICANN and such. I don’t need to buy anything I guess(?) as I already have the domain, I just need to have it registered.
Generally, registrars will require you to renew a domain during a transfer. Expect to pay ~$10 USD, which will extend your registration by a year.
Any registrar will work - they all function identically (except for some of the weirder top-level domains). Your choice of registrar will basically come down to three, non-technical thing.
- Price
- Quality of their interface/control panel
- Customer support
My two personal favorites are Namecheap and Gandi. Both of them have a track record of supporting a free and open internet.
Namecheap has regular promo codes, which you can find here: https://www.namecheap.com/promos/coupons/
Both should allow you to set DNS records for your domain, as well. That’s the real value the registrar will offer in a simple site hosting setup.
You will need to configure an A record at the registrar once you’ve transfered your domain. A records are what convert your domain name into a computer-readable IP address.
You didn’t mention where this Raspberry Pi will be running, so I’ll assume its in your home. In that case, you’ll need your home IP address, which you can find here: https://www.icanhazip.com/
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That’s super helpful, thank you. I’ll look into those sites.
I’m curious as to what happens if I just leave Wix as my registrar, if I could self host but continue to use this domain? I should probably try one of the above just to be safe though.
If you own a domain, just transfer it while it is still active / paid. If WIX gives you the option of leaving the domain and the price suits you, you can still hold the domain with them. If they don’t give you support for dns records then delegate your domain to even free dns like freedns.afraid.org and you can manage your records there.
Transferring your domain to another registrar only makes sense if wix no longer suits you for some reason.
However, if the only thing you want to achieve is to change the hostig from paid to your own then you don’t have to transfer the domain. You can manage it directly on wix (if they have such option) or transfer delegations for NS to freedns.afraid.org
And hosting so expensive that you want to do it yourself? For $ 27 / year I can get you a small decent hosting.
Curious how will OP pay you?
I use paypal.me
At a hosting company, among others, we have paypal as one of the payment methods.
I mentioned it not because of selling something, but there are still promotions / discounts available, the promotion is coming to an end and the old prices for 2019 are ending so I just mentioned it loudly …