Managing a portfolio of domains through various registrars can be a cumbersome task, consuming significant time and money. This complexity often hinders productivity and prevents teams from focusing on more profitable activities. It’s crucial to have a reliable partner and an expert team to ensure smooth domain migrations.
Domains are fundamental in the IT world, serving as the backbone for connecting hosting products to the internet and creating unique, personalised email addresses. They are vital for branding and offer immense opportunities with over 1,000 extensions available for registration. However, domains are often a secondary product for IT companies, sitting outside their core expertise.
Large hosting companies and domain registrars manage extensive accounts, often exceeding 100,000 clients and encompassing vast numbers of domains across multiple extensions. As companies grow through acquisitions and mergers, their domain portfolios become increasingly diverse, with different brands using various domain providers or maintaining direct relationships with registrars.
At some stage, the need to consolidate domain portfolios becomes apparent. This consolidation reduces technical complexities, frees up resources, and can lead to better purchasing conditions and substantial savings.
However, the process of migrating domain portfolios can be daunting. While transferring a single domain from one supplier to another is straightforward, managing the transfer of hundreds or thousands of domains, especially across different extensions, is challenging. Registrants need to be informed and approve transfers, which adds to the complexity, especially when dealing with numerous extensions and different providers.
The process involves not just single transfers but migrating multiple portfolios from various suppliers, aligning with specific requirements. For instance, the Centralnic Reseller team successfully managed one of the largest bulk transfers of over 477,000 .au domains, a significant migration in the .au namespace.
Companies managing many domains often face several common pain points. Handling different suppliers and registries with varying agreements and commercial contracts increases business complexity. Financially, higher volumes usually lead to lower unit prices, driving the need for efficiency and rationalised vendor relationships. Different suppliers and registries also have varying methodologies and processes, complicating day-to-day operations and development efforts.
A logical step to mitigate these challenges is to consolidate portfolios to reduce costs and standardise services, streamlining order processes by focusing on fewer suppliers or even a single provider.
Large-scale domain migrations are rare in everyday business, and designing a project to migrate an entire domain portfolio requires meticulous preparation. Often, companies lack the necessary experience, making expert knowledge crucial. Partnering with an experienced team is essential for a successful migration, ensuring the project is completed efficiently and effectively.
Team Internet plc (LON:TIG) – formerly CentralNic – is a global internet solutions group headquartered in London. Leveraging world-class technologies and industry leading teams, they have been transforming the way organisations, brands, publishers and consumers connect and thrive online.
