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Moving To A New Webhost
Anyone who is looking to move a website to a new server needs to know the basics of this process before getting started. This will involved moving the site to a new
discount hosting company, which is definitely a major transition to make. If you completed your domain registration with your existing company, you might run into some additional problems trying to keep that name, but there are ways around these issues if you follow these tips.
The first thing that you must do is make sure that your new discount web site hosting package has already been paid for before you make the switch. You do not have to do this months in advance, but you should have everything ready to go about a week before you make the switch. This will save you money, since you will not be paying for two servers for an entire month, and will also provide you with enough time to get everything done properly.
Make sure that you create a backup for all of your information, just in case something goes wrong with this process. Your new web hosting company might have a transferring option, but you should take the necessary precautions, as there could be issues with this transfer. In many cases, you will be responsible for this transfer yourself, which could end up being quite a bit of work. Save all of your information onto your computer, as this will allow you to have easy access to it should you run into an issue.
In order to transfer your files, you will need to receive your new IP address from the web hosting company. If you are able to do this right away, you will not have to worry about your site being down for too long. The less amount of time the site is down, the better it will be for you, so this is an important part of the process. It is also important that you have taken care of the domain registration in the proper manner at this point, as you will want to keep your URL the same to avoid confusion. If you are running scripts, you will have to include their directories on this new server, which will be somewhat time consuming. Try to make everything on this new server match the old server, as this will make things easier to keep track of.
The majority of discount website hosting companies will allow you to easily add your information to the database, so getting everything loaded should not be much of a problem. You will also have to change your nameserver, which will be the name that you chose during domain registration. Your new hosting company will provide you with the information on how to do this, although this step should only be taken once everything has been loaded properly. If you complete this step too early, you will have people visiting your website before it is ready for anyone to see, which could turn these people off in a hurry.
Once this has been completed, check all of your files thoroughly, to make sure that everything has been transferred properly. In many cases, individuals will leave dead links or scripts when they switch web hosting companies, which, once again, can be detrimental to the overall health of the website. If you find that something is not working properly, fix it right away, before the public has had a chance to find this problem for you.
Transferring your website to a new web hosting company is not an easy process, but it is definitely worth it because it will likely give your site features that it did not have in the past. You will have to put in a substantial amount of work to make this happen, but most people who do this end up happy with their decision. Luckily, there are some pretty good companies out there who will help you with the transfer and the domain registration portion of this transition, which will make everything easier for you. Your goal in this situation should be to complete the transfer with as little downtime as possible, so follow these steps and you should be able to make it happen.
