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How to Transfer your website to a new web hosting service
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There are various reasons why an online business owner
like you has decided to switch to a new web hosting providers.
Your old web hosting provider probably has very poor technical
support, or their web server is always down, or may be your
old web hosting provider cannot meet your hosting requirements
anymore or you could have discovered a cheaper web hosting
service?and etc. Regardless of the reasons, now you have
found a new web hosting service and you need to transfer
your website from your current web host to the new web host.
Below is the step-by-step guide that you can follow in order
to achieve a painless and error free of moving to a new
web hosting provider.
Transfer Schedule
Ideally, you should plan the transfer one month before you
terminate your old web hosting plan in order to have sufficient
time to perform a smooth transfer. Doing the transfer in
less than one month time frame will put your website in
risk of inaccessible.
New web hosting service registration
Now, sign-up your new web hosting service once you have
decided the termination date mentioned above. Depending
on your new web hosting provider, your new web hosting account
usually will be set up within 24 hours.
Files Backup
While waiting for your new web hosting account to be created,
it is time to backup all your web files on the old web hosting
provider. In most cases, you already have all the files
of your website on your local computer. However, it is still
a good idea to backup all your files from the old web server.
In addition to the normal HTML files, you may need to backup
any script files, databases files, and even server logs
files if it is necessary. You should create a directory
structure that is similar to the directory structure on
your web server and download the files into the respective
directory.
Files uploading
Once you are notified that your new web hosting account
has been created, you will receive a notification email
from your new web hosting provider. In that email, it contains
all the information required to set up website, this including
the FTP server information. With that FTP information, you
can now FTP to your new web hosting server and upload all
your files. You should start by first creating the directory
structures on the web server, and then upload all the files
to the respective directory.
It is the time to install any script files or databases
if there are used in your website. Likewise, it is a good
time to set up all the email accounts through the administration
panel.
Once you have finished uploading all the files and installed
the script files or databases, you can now use the temporary
URL to test your site. The temporary URL can be found in
the notification email from your new web hosting provider.
The temporary URL could be in the following format:http://viola.lunarpages.com/~your-webaccountname
Testing
Using the temporary URL directory, you can now test your
web site online. Due to the fact that different web hosting
server may require different server environment to execute.
Therefore, you need to verify all the scripts (such as CGI,
Perl) are working accordingly. In addition, you should test
all the hyperlinks in the normal web pages if possible to
ensure no broken links. While you are testing through the
temporary URL directory, your website hosted on the old
web hosting provider is continue operating.
Transfer domain name
Once you have finished testing your new website on the temporary
URL and verified it is working perfectly. The next step
is to contact your current domain name registrar (i.e. the
company where you register your domain name) to change the
old DNS (Domain Name Server) to point to the new DNS of
your new web hosting provider. Usually, the DNS information
is sent to you through email after you register successful
with the new web hosting provider. Alternatively, you will
be able to find the DNS information from the website of
your new hosting provider.
Domain name servers control how a domain name is resolved.
Typically, the domain name servers are in following format:
NS1.YOUR-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM
NS2.YOUR-NEW-WEB-HOSTING.COM
Some domain name registrar requires the IP addresses of
the DNS. In this case you have to provide the IP addresses
of your new DNS. For example:
NS1: 216.193.194.212
NS2: 216.193.207.106
Typically, it will take about 24-72 hours to get the DNS
record to change and propagate through all the WHOIS servers.
You can use Whois tools on the Internet such as whois.com
to monitor the status of the DNS transfer. Once the transfer
is completed, you will notice the change to your new DNS.
Alternatively, you can make a minor modification to your
home page (for example, adding a new image or symbol) and
upload to the new web hosting server. When you access your
home page through the normal domain name (www.your-website.com)
and you notice the new home page, then you are sure that
the DNS has been transferred successfully.
Final Testing
Now, your website on the new web hosting provider is officially
transferred and online. You should repeat all the tests
to ensure it is fully functional. Once you are confirmed
the new website is working correctly, you can go ahead to
terminate your old web hosting account.
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