10 Steps To Help You Prepare For The New Moniker

Moniker announced major updates that are coming on Monday, June 2nd, 2014. I don’t know about you but when I hear about a new system update and major updates I fear for the worst. So I list below 10 steps to help you prepare for the New Moniker.

Here is what their said on their latest email:

We’ve gone back to the drawing board, literally. By investing in system upgrades and platform enhancements, we’re changing how we do business.

Adding product offers, improving support, and developing our communication channels with our users are fundamental components to the changes coming soon. Our passion for domain names and helping you reach your goals, big or small, requires us to provide you with better service at every level – and we’re doing just that.

On Monday, June 2nd, 2014, visit Moniker to experience the change for yourself. We’re excited to share our new look with you and hope our new systems will make accessing the domains you want and managing your Web properties easier than ever. Our goal is to help you make a name for yourself on the Web.

KeyDrive S.A., Moniker’s parent company, acquired Moniker in 2012. (KeyDrive S.A. recently announced that it has sold the SnapNames business unit to Web.com.)

So what steps can you take so you can avoid most of the problems that might arise from the system update? If you accustomed to the old control panel I suggest you do as much housekeeping as you can. That is if you still have domains with Moniker. I personally have about 5% of the number of domains I once had. So here are the 10 steps:

Before the New Moniker:
1. Export a list of all your domains in a spreadsheet.
(Choose a page size that lists all your domains and then click on “Download Selected Domains” on the Domain Actions on the left. You get a spreadsheet with:
Domain Name,created date,expiration date,primary dns, secondary dns, tertirary dns, quaternary dns, category)

2. Renew any domains that are due to expire in the next couple of months. (Prices may change.)

3. Tranfer out any domains you wanted to transfer but always postponed. (It might become
difficult to export auth codes in bulk. Pending transfers will be completed even after Moniker has the new system installed.)

4. Note any outstanding support tickets you may have. (Support system may change and all you old tickets could be lost.)

5. Save a list of all the domains that you have whois privacy on.

6. Export all auth codes and then lock the domains again. (In case you want to have a list
with the auth codes and the new control panel doesn’t allow bulk auth code generation.)

After the New Moniker:
7. Check that all your domains (from the spreadsheet you downloaded) are in your account.

8. Check whois to see if all your whois privacy domains are still under privacy.

9. Ideally you should also check that the control panel expiry dates are the same with the
whois expiry dates. (I had this problem in the past with Moniker where the dates were out of sync.)

Tip:
10. There is also a View in the old control panel that is called “Multiple Registrar View” that you can see where your domains that are managed my Moniker are registered with. That is if you were using Snapnames. I get a few registrars such as:
DOMAINCAPITAN
BETTERTHANAVERAGEDOM
DOMAINSOVERBOARD
OCTOPUSDOMAINS
ISERVEYOURDOMAIN
DOMAININTHEBASKET
IMMINENTDOMAINS
UDOMAINNAME
FLANCRESTDOMAINS
BULLRUNDOMAINS
COMPUGLOBALHYPERMEGA
BARONOFDOMAINS
and others…
You might want to be extra careful with these domains.

I have personally completed all of the above steps. Do you have any other suggestions?

On Saturday May 31, 2014, from 3:00 AM – 3:00 PM EDT, Moniker.com will be undergoing maintenance to facilitate the launch of our new website experience; as a result, all services accessed through the website interface and API will be unavailable. So you have less than 48 hours to prepare.