When owning a TLD (Top-level domain), you need to ensure your registrant (domain owner) information stays up-to-date. At some point, you may need to change your domain registration details or transfer your domain name registration between registrants.
How to change your domain details
If your domain registration details have changed, you can update them by following these steps:
- Go to the My Yola dashboard and click Domains in the Topbar.
- Next to your domain, click the Advanced settings link.
- Expand the Edit your domain registration info tab.
- Edit your details and click Update details.
Note: Your details update will most likely be immediate, especially if you don’t change significant information (name, last name, or email). However, for some ccTLDs like .co.za, it can take up to 5 days.
The change of significant information or transfer of your domain name registration to another owner triggers the confirmation process, also called the trade process.
What does the “trade process” mean?
According to the ICANN rules, which went into effect on December 1st, 2016, the following changes to the domain registration details require an additional confirmation process (the trade process):
- Any change to the name of the registrant (first name, last name, or both)
- Change of the email address
- Change of organization of the domain registrant
- Domain transfer between registrants.
If you are changing details different from the ones listed above, the trade process will not be triggered, and you don’t have to confirm those changes by email.
Also, if you’ve just registered your domain, haven’t yet validated it for the first time (you have 15 days to do this), and want to change the registrant contact information, you can do it without triggering the trade process. You will receive an email where you must confirm the information for the first time (the initial verification).
Note: If your information has already been verified before, and you change your name or email address, this qualifies as a “trade process,” and after its successful completion, your domain will be locked for 60 days without an option to transfer it elsewhere.
ICANN trade process
When you change significant information (name, last name, email, or organization name) of your domain registration, you trigger the trade process. It consists of the following steps:
- Change your registrant information (see the How to change your domain details section).
- Receive a verification email at the email address you used when registering your domain.
- Click the link in this email to verify your information.
- Check your details in the new window and click the Verify Information button.
Note: If you don’t approve or reject the pending change within 7 days, the request will automatically be canceled.
The verification process applies to most of the TLDs. However, there’s a list of ccTLDs (Country code top-level domains) that do not require the trade process:
- .co
- .ca
- .in
- .co.za
- .eu
- .nl
- .com.mx
- .dk
- .de
- .it
- .co.uk
- .uk
Change of registrant or email
Suppose you’re transferring the domain between registrants. In that case, you need to pass the ICANN trade process and confirm the changes from both email addresses: the new owner’s email and the initial registrant's email. This is done to ensure that the domain is not being stolen from the initial registrant.
If you simply want to change the email address you registered the domain with, even though you’re not transferring the domain to another owner, ICANN sees you as a new person and triggers the trade process for both emails, initial and new.
In both situations, if there’s no access to the initial email address the domain was registered with, the domain's current owner should contact our Support Team for help.
We hope this guide helped you. If you’ve any questions left, please contact our Support Team.
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