I’ve done a fair amount of work in setting up domains for myself and friends, but I’ve little experience with moving domains.

I finally moved one of my domains (no link; work in progress [what’s with the 404 page??]), and – crap, 12 years since WWW – this is still not an easy process.

I moved to IPower.com, because I have had another friend’s site there for a few years without issues , and – overall – had what I wanted (no SSH! – Not big for this site, but….).

Again, painful process, but iPower made it much easier than other domain setups/transfers:

• Good online description of services; signup
• Post-siignup Email that outlined what one had to do, including name servers etc
• Control panel (web admin) that spells out POP server, SMTP server and so on. Awesome.
• I’ll spare you the grisly details, but what used to cost $220/year will be $48/year ($96/yr after first two years) for, essentially, way more functionality. Duh.
• NOTE: – Not an ad/endorsement for ipower.com; just the facts (good and bad). When I canceled from my old host, I said – honestly – I wanted a Linux solution that was affordable. The former host didn’t offer what I wanted at a competitive price.

Still – and I’m a web dork – not easy. How to set up mySql, does that come with PHPadmin and so on. I shudder to think what would happen if I moved a WordPress site to another host that runs WordPress (I dunno; might be seamless…or not). And does the average user even understand that you’ll nee PHPadmin (or SSH) if you run WordPress (etc)?

Physical fact: I hate moving (apartments etc.); across the street is just as much of a pain in the butt as across the state.

Virtual fact: Moving domains is now easier, but still not non-dork friendly. Getting better, but…

That’s my experience.