How to Transfer a Domain From Wordpress to Cloudflare

Wordpress has guides for changing your nameservers and for transferring your domain, and Cloudflare has documentation on transferring domains. Neither of these guides fully explained the process for me, though. To save you some heartache, use my guide.

Change DNS nameservers to Cloudflare

1. If you haven’t done so already, sign up at Cloudflare.
2. In the Cloudflare dashboard, click on “Add Site” and enter your domain name. Cloudflare will then scan your current DNS records.
3. Cloudflare will show you a list of the DNS records it found. To make sure they match your settings in Wordpress, navigate to Upgrades → Domains in Wordpress.
4. Click on the domain you want to edit.
5. Expand the DNS records section and click Manage.
6. Ensure all records in Wordpress are reflected in Cloudflare’s list. You’ll likely need to add the TXT record shown in Wordpress to Cloudflare’s list.
7. Cloudflare will probably have two A records with IP addresses you don’t see in Wordpress. You can verify these IP addresses are correct by going to DNS Checker and entering your domain name in the search bar and searching. Make sure those IP addresses in DNS Checker and in Cloudflare match!
8. In Cloudflare, click continue.
9. Cloudflare will now ask you about HTTPS settings. I recommend enabling both of them (Automatic HTTPS Rewrites and Always Use HTTPS).
10. Once you’ve set your domain settings, click Finish.
11. Cloudflare will now give you the addresses of your two name servers.
12. Go back to your domain settings in Wordpress and expand the Name Servers block. Click the “Use WordPress.com name servers” radio button.
13. Paste the Cloudflare nameserver addresses into the text boxes and click “Save custom name servers”.
14. Back in Cloudflare, click “Check nameservers”. The change may have already gone through, though it can take up to 24 hours. It will likely take only a few minutes.
15. If Wordpress is currently managing your SSL certificates, ensure that you have set your SSL/TLS mode to “Full (Strict)” in Cloudflare in the SSL/TLS → Overview page.
16. If you haven’t received it already, you should soon receive an email from Cloudflare saying that your status is active, once the nameserver change has gone through.

Change domain registration to Cloudflare

1. If you are still in your site’s dashboard in Cloudflare, click the arrow in the top left corner that says “Back to email’s account”.
2. Go to Domain Registration → Transfer Domain.
3. In your Wordpress domain settings click the Transfer button.
4. Make sure that the Transfer Lock radio button is off.
5. After a few minutes, you should see your domain as available for transfer in Cloudflare.
6. Click Confirm Domains.
7. In Wordpress, click Get authorization code. It should arrive at your email address in a few minutes.
8. Once you get the code, paste it into Cloudflare’s text box.
9. Click Confirm and Proceed.
10. Enter your contact information and click Confirm and Finalize Transfer.
11. You should receive an email from Cloudflare indicating that a domain transfer has been requested.
12. Within hours, you should also receive an email from WordPress notifying you of the transfer request. Within the email, click the link to the Transfer Management Page.
13. In the page, click Accept Transfer.
14. You should soon receive an email from Cloudflare saying the domain transfer is complete.

Point WordPress back to your domain

1. At this point, your WordPress site won’t be live on your domain. To fix this, go to Upgrades → Domains in Wordpress.
2. Click “Add new domain” in the top right corner and click “Use a domain I own”.
3. Enter the domain name and click Continue.
4. Click Select under “Connect your domain”.

That’s it! You’ve successfully transferred your domain to Cloudflare! Go celebrate with that $10 you just saved this year! 🎉