Transferring an existing domain entails changing the registrar company that provides the domain name registration service, so after the transfer itself, you’ll have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS updates through the new domain name registrar. The transfer procedure itself is standard with most universal and country-specific domain name extensions. Certain country-code extensions are more specific and entail different steps, but in the general case transferring a domain entails several basic steps and one of them is unlocking the domain name. The lock is a security option, which is being embraced by more and more domain registry operators. It’s a standard feature supported by all generic TLDs. If a domain name is locked, it won’t be possible to initiate a transfer process, so nobody can even try to steal your domain. The domain lock can be removed only through the account where the domain name is registered in the first place and all new domains that support this functionality are locked by default the moment they are registered.