Migrations rarely fail loudly. The website stays up, the admin panel looks healthy, and everyone moves on.
What actually happened is that email was pointed at the new provider before the accounts existed, so four hours of incoming mail bounced. Or the old sender is still listed and the new one isn’t, so everything you send is quietly failing — and nobody notices until replies halve two weeks later.
What usually goes wrong
A gap between two changes
Two things should have been switched at the same moment and weren’t. That gap is where mail disappears.
Nobody checked afterwards
Everyone assumes it worked because nothing showed an error. Errors are not how this fails.
The forgotten pieces
Certificates, link tracking sub-domains, an old forwarding rule. Small things that break a live campaign.
How I do it
Everything that can be prepared in advance is prepared in advance. The actual switch is the shortest part.
1. Prepare everything first
The new setup gets built and checked against the old one, item by item, while the old one is still running. New email accounts are created and tested before anything is pointed at them.
I also lower one timing setting a day ahead, which is the difference between the switch taking minutes and taking a full day. Doing it the other way round is how a planned ten-minute change becomes a day of half-working email.
2. Overlap, don’t swap
Both the old and new sender stay valid during the changeover, so there is never a moment when your email has nowhere legitimate to come from.
3. Switch, then check
Only after the switch do I confirm it — every setting checked as live from several places, a real message sent and read, and certificates confirmed on every address including the link-tracking ones people forget.
The old setup stays in place until all of that passes.
How long it takes
What I need from you
Three things, plus one that saves a lot of trouble.
Where things are now
Which registrar, which DNS, which email provider. A screenshot is fine.
Where it needs to go
The destination, and whether you’re moving everything or only part.
Access to both sides
Or approval to work with you on a call while you click.
Anything else that sends
Tools that send email as you, so they keep working after the move.
Is this right for you?
This is a good fit
- You’re changing registrar, DNS host or email provider
- You have a lot of domains and moving them by hand is not realistic
- A previous move went wrong and you want this one supervised
- You cannot afford a window of failing email
Look elsewhere
- You have one domain and are comfortable doing it yourself
- You need it moved in the next hour
What it costs
Priced on how many domains and how many moving parts. A single domain move is small; a fleet move is where this is worth paying for.
Check it yourself first
These are free and run in your browser. If they answer your question, you don’t need me.
Common questions
Will my email go down during the move?
It shouldn’t, and that’s the entire point of the sequence. New accounts exist and are tested before anything is repointed, and both old and new stay valid during the overlap.
How long does a registrar transfer take?
Usually five to seven days, plus any lock period — 60 days after registering or after a previous transfer. That timing is the registrar’s, not mine. Everything else takes minutes.
Can you move a whole fleet at once?
Yes, and bulk is where this is genuinely worth paying for. Moving them by hand is how records get missed.
What about my link tracking?
It’s part of the move, and it’s the thing most often forgotten. A tracked link pointing at an address with no valid certificate breaks every click in a live campaign.
Last reviewed
Other things I do
Tell me what’s moving
Registrar, DNS, email provider or all three. Send me the current setup and I’ll map the sequence and the risky moments before anything changes.
What happens on the call
We look at your setup together, I tell you what’s wrong and what it takes to fix. If you can do it yourself, I’ll say so — that happens fairly often, and it’s fine.