7 Easy Steps to Moving Your Website to a New Web Hosting Company
Recently our website was attacked by a hacker which left us in pretty bad shape. All though we back it up daily, at the time I was sick and had not done so for about four days. Well the hacker apparently smelled the weak link and went for it. Being the website had not been backed up in four days there was some data lost.
After my host got the server going again my website was not turned back on. The hosting provider informed us that our site was using to much CPU load which is in violation of their TOS. So I asked my host to supply me with their latest back-up so I could recover the missing data.
After about two days of calling our old host, we finally received a back-up of the website. The whole aggravation of getting a copy made it clear we needed a new hosting service. After uploading the website files to our new host we discovered the back-up was more than 4 weeks old. Another few days past and we received another copy, apparently our old hosting company was not backing up our website as advertised cause that copy was about 5 weeks old.
We did manage to get the website back online after a few days of hard work, emails quickly trickled in from the regulars asking how did we perform the move and so on. So we decided that the time is right for this post.
So many dissatisfied website owners stay in a relationship with their web hosting companies because they are unsure of the process and or afraid of the long periods of down time to move their site. The truth of the mater is, when you’re moving from one host to another, there won’t be any down time of your website if you prepare properly.
Having a few hosting accounts over the years I have had to move one or more of my websites a time or two. Mainly, I moved because my website had outgrown the resources of the host and we needed to upgrade to a more powerful hosting package that wasn’t being offered by the current hosting company. Then of course we had this recent issue, thus the move.
The below listed steps I follow when moving a website or a few sites to a new web hosting provider.
Step 1. Choose a new host, as silly as this may sound it is vital to select a reliable web hosting company. Research the new host as much as possible before starting the process of migrating from your existing web host provider to ensure a compatible infrastructure, there are tons of Web Hosting Reviews on the Internet to conduct an investigation.
Research the reputation of the new web hosting company on various independent forums and blogs, try to locate some existing customers on those forums to construct an opinion about the quality of customer service that they generally offer. One such forum to research would be WebHostingTalk.com. Extend your research by searching for its name in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, type the name of the host, after that type in the hosts name again and the word sucks right in behind it, you will be surprised what you get back.
Make sure the new host has the required modules and databases required to run the scripts you may be using. Make sure the they can accommodate you in the future when your website grows beyond your current requirements so you don’t have to move again. Customer Support is a must have, it is imperative that your new host offers good customer support. My last web host farmed this out, often times I would get tech reps that I could hardly understand what they were saying.
Step 2. Back up all of your files from your existing Web hosting server to your hard drive, many web hosting control panels allow for the transfer of websites by automatically copying files, we recommend you download all your websites local files and database manually to a folder on your desktop.
Step 3. Create a hosting account at your new hosting service, upload all your web site’s files to the new server. Suggest you set up email accounts at this time. If you’re unsure how to transfer your website files, ask your new web hosting solution if they can except an email with the website file attached, ask them to upload the files for you. If not, most providers use Cpanel and there a tons of videos on how to upload those files, research or ask them where to get those block of how to instructions if you cant locate them.
Step 4. Inform your visitors that the website is currently being moved to a new host or server. This way if there is a problem they will most likely return later to feed on your prized offerings.
Step 5. Make Changes to DNS, proceed to the service you registered your Domain name with, and point the name servers to your new service. Some web hosting services will do this step for you. Once one the new website should resolve any where from 15 minutes to 72 hours. Wait, this period is known as propagation, I strongly suggest during this time frame not to make any changes on the website, as for one moment the DNS will be pointing to the new server and the next moment it will point back to the old and so on. In many cases the changes are instantaneous depending on the configuration of the Internet server provider. None the less, you have made it this far and do not need any more problems, just wait.
Step 6. Test your site at it’s new home, once you find that the domain has resolved for you that is.Make sure that everything on your website is working as it should be and that the link structure is working properly.Navigate through your website and take a look around. Let this run for a few days, keep an eye on the CPU load if you can.
Step 7. Delete your old account, if you are sure everything is working well, then go for it – delete all your files on the old hosting account first then cancel it.
