I have a bunch of domains that I had expiring about the same time. I have always used Godaddy but recently started registering my domains with Whois Guard. Godaddy charges like $8 for this and I found others who don’t. When my Godaddy domains started expiring I wanted to transfer them to Namecheap.

I thought you just unlock the domain on your current registrar and that is that. Not so. To transfer a domain out of Godaddy it takes a little effort. But it is not that difficult if you know what you are doing .

I did a little searching and here is what I found:

• When initiating a Godaddy domian transfer, the new registrar requires a Godaddy EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) code. Basically, the new registrar will queue the transfer until you (the owner) enters the EPP code.
• Godaddy does not exactly make it easy to find this code. Log in to Godaddy, open up the domain you want transferred, and on the bottom of the left column will be a link that says “Authorization Code: Send by Email”. Clicking on the link will result in an email being sent to the domain owner’s email that Godaddy has with the EPP code.
• If you have Godaddy’s DomainsByProxy, you have to cancel it before you start all this. Godaddy will not release the domain if it is on.
• In NameCheap go to the pending transfers. There will be a list of your domains waiting for the Godaddy EPP code.

After you give your registrar the Godaddy EPP code to transfer your domain Godaddy will release it a few days later.