Today’s blog post discusses the term “bulk transfer”, an industry expression for moving a large number of domain names from one sponsoring registrar (or registrant) to another. We look at bulk transfers in .au, in particular a recent transfer that occurred in late May 2020, the largest ever seen in the .au namespace.

Bulk transfers in .au 

As the administrator and self-regulatory body for the .au ccTLD, .au Domain Administration (auDA) explains in this published policy that a bulk transfer is “the transfer of a minimum of 1,000 domain names at a time with the prior written consent of auDA”, which can occur between registrants or registrar groups.

We are excited to announce that Afilias Australia has recently transferred 477,874 .au domain names between registrar groups, the largest of its kind to be completed within the .au namespace, and the largest bulk transfer supported by Afilias to date.

These .au domain names were moved across without a disruption to services, or a single second of downtime for supported websites and email addresses, which is a major accomplishment for all teams involved.

The process explained

The May 2020 bulk transfer became necessary when Arq Group sold its TPP Wholesale reseller business to CentralNic Group PLC in 2019. It involved .au domain names held in three Arq Group entities being consolidated into one primary CentralNIC registrar group. 

With multiple registrars involved, this transfer was carried out in two stages, and after a much smaller portion of the transfer took place on 19 May 2020, the remaining 87.4% of names were migrated on 26 May 2020, completing the process. 

Bruce Tonkin, Chief Operating Officer at auDA reflected on a job well done. “Congratulations to the team at Arq Group (now Webcentral Group), CentralNic, and Afilias for completing the largest domain name transfer between registrars within .au, and one of the largest globally.”

A collaborative effort

As the registry operator for .au domain names, Afilias was responsible for supporting the technical requirements and played a key role in making sure every step in the process was understood by all parties. 

Patrick Donaldson, Country Manager at Afilias Australia commended the collaborative input.

“I am incredibly proud of Afilias’ response in ensuring transparency and clarity when communicating with teams across different time zones and in fulfilling the technical requirements of the transfer. This is a tremendous achievement for everyone involved.”

Have a comment, some feedback or idea for a future blog post? Email us today at blog@afilias.com.au