Tinkerer journal: How to Transfer a Domain from Squarespace to Cloudflare

I'm about to do my first ever domain transfer. It's from Squarespace to Cloudflare, and I hope it goes smoothly.

I need to do this because Squarespace is woefully under-featured for the needs of building an indie sass product.

I have a major concern. This used to be a google domain which was handed over to Squarespace with a Google workspace subscription. My concern is that this subscription will hinder the transfer, but we'll have to see.

I have my first issue. It might take up to 24 hours to receive the transfer code I need. It's already been a few minutes but I haven't received it. So I've decided to complete all the steps which do not require the code, and continue when the code arrives.

I have good news about my Google workspace concern. The good news is that Squarespace gives the impression that when you have a Google workspace account attached to a domain on Squarespace, this situation will not prevent the domain from being transferred out.

Update. So far I have:

- turned of the lock on my domain
- requested a transfer code
- disabled DNSSEC protection
- confirmed the domain doesn't have whois protected

These are just pre-requisites to make a domain transferable.

I have also learned of some important information. The info is that:

1 - the transfer will take up to 15 days to complete.
2 - I will have to pay the new registrar to extend the domain registration by one year.

Info 1 is disheartening because I want this done by tomorrow.

I have another issue. The issue is that I need to initiate a domain transfer to Cloudflare from Squarespace. However, squarspace's domain transfer documentation does not say how to perform this initiation. So, I'm stuck and will likely need to contact an agent, or prod around.

I was wrong about how I need to initiate a domain transfer to Cloudflare.

It turns out that I first need to add my existing domain to Cloudflare's proxy system, before I can transfer that domain to Cloudflare.

Let's see if I can initiate the transfer when I do this.

I have hit another issue. The issue is that, to avoid DNS resolution issues when setting up a Cloudflare proxy on my domain, I should turn off DNSSEC protection at least 24 hours beforehand.

I'm going to risk not waiting the 24 hours, and see what happens.

I am about to start making changes to my DNS settings to add Cloudflare as the proxy. So as with all things DNS changes, the first step is to have a backup of the current settings. So here we are:

I think it's safe to publicly post these.

The name servers have been updated.

I have hit a blocker. Remember I wanted to get to the step on Cloudflare which requires the transfer code from Squarespace? I can't. Cloudflare says I need to wait a bit to have the nameservers change take effect.

So now I have 2 items blocking my progress.

There is nothing else I can do. While I wait for these changes to take effect, this entire migration task is blocking me from adding mailgun to my sass app. Which in turn is blocking authentication in prod.

A cascade of blocks. We continue tomorrow.

The blockers which slowed down my domain transfer from Squarespace to Cloudflare are out of the way!

Cloudflare has moved my domain behind their firewall, and I have my transfer code from Squarespace ready to go.

So let's see if I can finish this before gym time.

The transfer failed on the first try. This was after Cloudflare had verified the transfer code, and I had put in the billing and contact details they requested. My best guess as to why it failed is that I used new contact details. I'll try again or contact support.

The transfer worked on the second try! I had to request a new transfer code from Squarespace. Then I made sure to use the same contact details as on Squarespace when I filled in the domain registration details on Cloudflare. I'm pleased the transfer is now underway.