Should you connect or transfer your domain to Weebly?
If you already have a domain you purchased from another company, but are new to Weebly, you’ll need to decide how to associate your domain with your website: connect it or transfer it. There are pros and cons to each choice.
Read the Squarespace version of this blog post here.
The difference between connecting and transferring a domain
Choosing to connect a domain purchased elsewhere to your new website means that you continue to pay your domain registrar for domain renewals. If you have email services through your domain registrar, you continue to use that service. You pay Weebly only for a website hosting plan. You work with two companies to keep your website active; one keeps the domain and email active and the other, Weebly, keeps the website files active.
Transferring a domain moves responsibility for the domain from the original domain registrar to Weebly. Both your website files and your domain are managed by one company, but you will have to establish a new email account through the integrated Google Workspace plan provided by Weebly.
Advantages of connecting a domain
It’s faster to get your website connected (you don't need to wait up to 10 days for the transfer to occur).
If you have email connected to your domain, you don't need to start from scratch with a new email account.
There are fewer steps to get your website connected (you don't need an authorization code from your domain registrar).
If you have multiple domains, you can keep all your domains with one registrar.
Advantage of transferring a domain
If you transfer your domain, you only have one provider for both your website and your domain, so you'll receive billing and expiration information from one place and if something goes wrong with your website, you only have one company to contact.
Consequences of transferring a domain
You will need to plan on 7–10 days for the transfer to complete. It doesn’t always take that long, but you should be prepared for your old website to be inaccessible at some point while the transfer is in process to your new Weebly website.
Email connected to a domain complicates the decision
If you have an email account associated with your domain, that email account will no longer be active when you begin the transfer process, meaning your business won't have access to email until the transfer is complete. You will need to create a new email account after the transfer. To have domain email through Weebly, you will purchase an add-on monthly subscription of their built-in Google Workspace email plan.
You may be able to back up email from your previous email provider and restore the messages if your new and old email systems are compatible, but you need to ask your current email service provider in advance, before you initiate any transfer process, to make sure this is the case.
For clients who already have email through a third-party domain registrar, I generally recommend they connect their domains to avoid the disruption of losing active email accounts.
There are times when you must connect, rather than transfer, a domain
If you've purchased your domain or changed your domain contact information in the last 60 days, you can only connect the domain. You can choose to transfer it to Weebly later after 60 days have elapsed with no changes.
If you have a Weebly website and a domain other than .com, .net, or .org, you must connect the website to your domain. Weebly can only accept transfers for .com, .net, and .org domains.
What’s right for you?
I’ve helped clients with both scenarios, connecting their domains and transferring them. In general, I prefer transferring domains when it isn’t too inconvenient because you combine all your website services under one roof and can call on one Support team if the website goes down or is behaving strangely. There are several situations, however, where the inconvenience or disruption to business makes a domain transfer unwise. The chart below summarizes my recommendations.
Summarizing reasons to choose to connect or transfer a domain
Whether you decide to connect or transfer a domain, I recommend that you follow the help articles from your domain registrar and from Weebly and don’t hesitate to ask for help from their Support teams. There are details that must be followed precisely and each third-party domain registrar has different procedures.
Here is an article to get you started:
How to use a domain you purchased elsewhere
