Transfer your web hosting account to a new host easy and with minimum downtime

Willing to change hosts? Many people are - for one reason or another. What prevents them from making the decisive step is the fear that their website will vanish in the process, or they are not qualified to do it. What we offer below is few easy steps, that would be common to the majority of hosts that are out there. The best thing about the move?

You can do it yourself!

In many discussion groups you will see such a transition dubbed "mission impossible". Actually what you need to do is not that complicated, we simply suggest a sequence of actions to be taken to make life a bit easier.

Disclaimer

This tutorial is provided as a general guideline for people who wish to transfer their account to a new web host, incurring minimum possible downtime (if any at all). As such it is not specific to the setup and conditions of HostingDelivery LTD, despite the fact that the information presented will be helpful for moving over to us; you will be able to use the steps below in order to move to almost any other operating web host.

We would be happy if you find this tutorial useful and would appreciate if you used our rating system. Finally, before we start, one last warning: the tutorial is not fully comprehensive, it's volume has been reduced in order to help make it readable and easier to follow.

Few good practices

This is what our tutorial is all about - several steps to make life easier for both personal and business websites.

Number one, please do not cancel your account with your current host as soon as you have decided to move. We also recommend that you do not make any modifications to your domain name's DNS settings (be it servers, registrar, etc.). Judging from our own experience telling your visitors and customers about the transition and the possible (but not obligatory) problems is also a good practice; posting a note about the proceedings is an excellent way of avoiding disappointment.

Complete these steps and you can confidently get down to the actual move!

Backup, backup, backup

First and foremost there is one principle that we follow here at HostingDelivery. Backup, backup, backup: another good rule we recommend that you turn into a habit. The best way to make sure you are not losing any content is to make a backup of both your files and databases and download that to your personal computer. If there are no such options directly available to you, you could request that your host does a complete backup for you and makes it available for you in a directory that is not publicly accessible.

DNS tweaks

This next step, although not required, is a good thing to do because it will make the transfer process much smoother. With the usual settings that your DNS servers have your site might be in “transition” for up to 72 hours due to the nature of the global DNS system. To speed this up a notch you can change some settings of your domain name (namely the TTL and REFRESH setting) to a smaller value. (First off, please record the original values and keep them for reference.) This can be done in the control panel for the domain name, which registrars or hosts usually supply when you purchase the domain with them.

The value we suggest has been tested out in practice: decrease the TTL and REFRESH values to 60 seconds. If you are not allowed access to these settings you can again request that the the support personnel of your current host or domain name registrar does it for you. Even if you are not able to change these there is nothing to worry about, you did post a notice to everyone on your old host, right?

Transfer, now

With the steps above already complete you can safely proceed with the transfer of all your files and databases. There are many ways, but the easiest yet is using a paid or free FTP client. We suggest using Filezilla on Windows machines and gFTP on *nix ones for the purpose (both are free). These programs are easy to use and offer drag-and-drop capabilities that will allow you to easily move your files over to the new server. The best thing about them is that you can actually queue-up large number of files and the program will upload them all without further actions taken by yourself. The details for connecting to your new host's server are provided to you upon signing up, so you do not need to worry.

The majority of hosts provide easy-to-use online tools for uploading and setting up the backups of your databases: those depend on the company you have chosen and should be well documented. Again, should troubles occur get in touch with the support team of the company and ask for assistance.

All this sounds rather labor intensive, does it not? Fear not, for many hosts offer help with file and database transfer. Some are ready to walk the extra mile for you, offering you the possibility to transfer your complete site for free. We also provide such services, you can find out more here.

Check and double check

Since this is an important part of the whole process we will devote some more time to it, but you can skip some steps if you feel confident.

After file and database transfer are complete, check if all the components of your web site on the new server are fully operational. After transferring thousands of accounts over, we know that 9 out of 10 transferred accounts would not work as expected without some minor modifications. Most people simply need to modify a few links on their web sites.

There are several types of links you can use on your pages but the ones you should be concerned with are the RELATIVE and ABSOLUTE types. Relative links do not include your domain name in the location, like the example below

<a href="subdir/something.html">Link to a page</a>

and absolute links have your domain name in the location

<a href="http://domain.com/page.html">Link</a>

One can easily tell the difference is in the address links point to. Avoiding the usage of absolute links and switching over to relative ones will take you one step closer to seeing your pages as they were on the previous host.

If you are using a ready application to build all or part of your website - be it a CMS, a forum or a blog script, etc. - chances are that you will need to modify a configuration file. This is a rather easy task to achieve but you may still need to consult with either the application's manual or your new hosting company for help on the issue.

Change DNS servers/settings.

Once you are 100% (or at least 99%) sure that everything is working as it should you can change the rest of the DNS settings of your domain. You can modify those through the domain name control panel we spoke of in the DNS tweaks part above. That done, please return the domain name's TTL and REFRESH settings to their original values (the ones you wrote on a Post-it note and stuck at the bottom of your monitor), so that everything is back to "operational" rather than "transitional" status, in other words "safe". Again, you can request that these tasks are completed by the company you bought the domain name from.

Many people would purchase their domain name together with an account from the original host, or a totally different company. Now that you are moving you have to take your domain with you. To “take” your domain name with you, you need to transfer it to your new host/domain registrar (we will discuss this process in another tutorial). Please ask either your new host or your domain name registrar for the steps you need to take about this particular move.

Old account cancellation

You are probably eager to close the account with that host you ran away from by now. To be on the safe side let it live for a couple of days more. Some ISPs do not update their DNS servers for longer periods of time, and any of your visitors that is a customer of such a provider will not be able to find you. This particular client will still be directed to the old host and will not see your page there if you have canceled you account, and he might have missed the move notice as well. But how do you know when to cancel your old account?

Simple, just watch your statistics on the old account! If you do not have such there should be a raw access log available or at least an error log of your account. After daily visits go down to three to five per day you may shut down your old account and focus on your new one.

Be happy

If you have followed this tutorial closely you have now reached the phase where you get to sit back, put your feet up, and relax after a job well done. Everything is now moved to your new host, your domain points to the right location, the whole world knows about it, and you have a bunch of happier clients who saw you walk the extra mile to keep them informed about the move.

Please rate this tutorial on the top of this page and drop us a line if you think things can be done in a better way, we are eager to know more every day.

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