Just like moving home, moving your web site can be stressful and traumatic. But their are times when you have no choice. Your current host doesn’t provide the services that you want to start using; you outgrow your bandwidth; you want better reliability or customer service; the reasons are many.
You don’t want to loose sales or potential customers during the move – if possible, the change should be completely transparent to your visitors.
First, choose your new host, and open an account with them. When your new hosting company confirm that your account is ready to use, set up your FTP program with the new details – but DON’T remove your old host’s details yet!
Next, make sure you have a complete and up-to-date copy of your site on your hard drive. You should do this anyway, as a backup, but double-check before you move. If necessary, download a complete copy from your current host – you can do this with your FTP program.
Now you can upload your web pages to the new host. You may have to create the directories (folders) manually, or you may be able to copy them up with their sub-folders and files included. Your domain name still points at your old host, so you’ll need to log in with the user name that your new host has given you until you move your domain name pointers.
Log in to your new account and set up your email accounts. You may want to set up email forwarding, or to create extra POP accounts for filtering or for other company employees. Make a note of the Primary and Secondary host names and IP addresses – you’ll need them later. They’ll look something like this: Primary Server Hostname: AB1.HOST.NET Primary Server IP Address: 12.34.56.789 Secondary Server Hostname: AB2.HOST.NET Secondary Server IP Address: 12.345.78.69
Visit your site using the temporary address that your new host has given you. This will look something like http://host5.host.com/username or http://username.host.com Look for broken internal links, missing graphics, and see that any email, forms, downloads and ezine sign-ups work.
When you’re completely happy that your new site is working perfectly, you can start the process of changing your domain name so it points at the new host. This can take from a few hours to a a couple of days, depending on your registrar and hosts.
Visit the web site of your domain name registrar, and follow the instructions they give for entering the details of your new host. (These are the details of the host’s servers and IP addresses that you made a note of earlier. Don’t worry if you forgot – just go back to their site, and check the Help pages for the details.)
Most registrars allow you to enter the new details on their site, rather than having to email them. You’ll need to log in with your user name and password – you wouldn’t want just anyone moving your domain name, perhaps to point at a totally unsuitable site.
It may take up to a week for all the domain name servers around the world to be updated, so keep your old site running for at least ten days to make sure all the traffic is being directed to your new site.
When you’re happy that your new site is running smoothly, and your old site is no longer needed, you can close your account with your old hosting company.
Here’s a tip: If you type your domain name, but get your old site, or your old hosting company’s “page not found” message, it could just be that your internet service provider has cached copies of your page, and you’re not looking at the new pages but the cached copy of your old site. Two ways to check this:
1 – If you belong to a webmaster forum, ask for a site check from someone who doesn’t use your ISP.
2 – Use another ISP to check it out. If you only have one ISP account, you may find it worth signing up with another one for emergency use. As I write this, http://www.fireflyuk.net have an “easy access” which allows you to use the internet without signing up. You just pay local phone rates. If you’re outside the UK, you can probably find ISP’s offering similar services – visit http://www.theispguide.com/ or for the UK http://www.ispreview.co.uk
Happy site building!
Dianne Reuby is co-author of the e-book “First Website Builder”.
Dianne created and runs the First Web Builder site, dedicated to providing ebooks and tips for new webmasters. Visit FWB at http://firstwebbuilder.co.uk/
