Web Hosting Information

How To Change Your Web Hosting Provider - Step-By-Step Guide


Whether you are disgruntled with the level of service your current web hosting provider, or you have discovered a provider that offers you better deal, or your online business has simply outgrown your present provider, any reason is as good as any for changing your web hosting provider. The only concern is how to switch your web site from a web host to another in the right way and no or as little aggravations as possible.

The very first step in changing web hosting providers is to find one that meets all your requirements. Although you should have some experience in finding one from your last search, let's still review the main issues when choosing one. Take a good look at the disk space and bandwidth your future plan will provide you. As you web site's bandwidth requirements may grow in time, purchase a little more than you need and take a good look at the costs of the bandwidth for exceeding your traffic quota. Also make sure that the new web hosting provider will offer you the same tools and installed software as your previous old one. Ask the technical support if the software or scripts in the offer are already installed and configured. It would be a bad experience to find out after you have completely migrated your web site that not everything is working properly just because the not all the software in the offer comes pre-installed and you should have requested its activation. All these are very important and ensure you don't have to go through this whole procedure of changing web hosts real soon in the future.

Sign up for the new hosting plan. It sounds obvious, but the thing you should look after is sign up for the new one while still having about two weeks until your old hosting plan expires. This will give you time to react if anything goes wrong during the migration of your web site and will smoothen the transition for your visitors or customers, your business enjoying as much continuity as possible.

Update your backup copy of your web site - you do have backups don't you? If not this is a very good place to start with. Best thing would be to have a backup copy of your web site burned onto a compact disk CD and store this CD into a safe location. Your backup will include the entire web site: files, images, directory structure, databases.

Upload your web site to the web servers of your new web hosting provider.

Now it is testing time. Most web hosting providers will offer you the possibility to preview your web site before it goes live. Use this feature to test if your web site looks good and its functionalities are all intact on your new web server.

Continue by configuring your existing e-mail accounts on the new web server. It would be a good idea to write down the new POP3 and SMTP you will be using soon.

If you haven't changed your web site design with this move, it will be a good idea to put mark the web pages on your new web server just o differentiate from the old one. In this way you will be able to tell when your DNS information is updated, which is the next step of migrating your web site.

It's time to change your name server. As anxious you might be to transfer, it would be a very good thing to announce your visitors and customers about the imminent change of web hosting providers you are making and to apologize for any possible inconveniences of downtime your web site might encounter. I don't need to tell you how important this announcement is for the overall image of your web business.

Now you can announce your registrar to change your DNS information, or if you can change it yourself, go ahead and do it.

All you have to do now is wait for the DNS information to propagate across all the DNS servers. This entire process could take as much as 72 hours to complete, but it is possible to start seeing the first results after a couple of hours.

Final step would be to update the e-mail client you are using to match the new POP3 and SMTP settings.

You have successfully changed your web hosting provider. Good luck with the new one!

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com ), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans, free web hosting guide, free hosting quote, web hosting glossary and more.

This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the "About" and "weblinks" are kept intact.


MORE RESOURCES:

FireHost Web Hosting Collects Two Million
Web Hosting and Domain Name News (blog)
Today, FireHost, a Texas and Arizona based web hosting company, announced it has reached a new deal with high tech investors, who will contribute 2 Million ...
FireHost gets $2 million in fundingBizjournals.com
FireHost, Inc. Closes $2 Million Series A Funding Round; Prepares to Launch ...PR-USA.net (press release)

all 5 news articles »


Ariotek Web Hosting Upgrade Customer Service Center
PR.com (press release)
Ariotek is a web hosting company created from the amalgamation of three very successful web based companies. Ariotek already hosts thousands of web sites, ...

and more »


New VPS Introduced by Netfirms Web Hosting
Web Hosting and Domain Name News (blog)
This morning, domain name and web hosting provider Netfirms, announced that it has a brand new VPS solution for webmasters. According to the web host, ...
Web Hosting Provider, Netfirms Introduces VPS S-SeriesTophosts
Web Host Netfirms Introduces New VPS SolutionWeb Host Industry Review

all 3 news articles »


Web Hosting Sales and Promos - March 12 2010
Web Host Industry Review
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- This week in web hosting saw a handful of sales and promotions, a couple of them tied to ...



HostGator Wins New Web Hosting Award
Web Hosting and Domain Name News (blog)
... HostGator, a web host in Houston, Texas, proudly announced that the company is the new winner of the 2010 Reader's Choice Awards for web hosting. ...

and more »


Group NBT Sees Web Hosting and Domain Revenue Growth Over Past Fiscal Half
Web Host Industry Review
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Despite a continuing slowdown in new customer acquisition and slower growth in the existing ...
Group NBT Shows Rise in Web Hosting & Domain RevenuesTophosts

all 5 news articles »


HostGator Wins About.com Reader's Choice Best in Web Hosting Awards
PR Web (press release)
Houston, TX (PRWEB) March 10, 2010 -- HostGator.com, a leading web hosting provider, was declared winner in three separate categories for the About.com, ...

and more »


ARIN to Host IPv6 Web Hosting Session at 25th Public Policy Meeting Next Month ...
Web Host Industry Review
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The American Registry for Internet Numbers (www.arin.net) will be holding IPv6 web hosting ...

and more »


The Importance of Having A Web Presence
IPWatchdog.com
You can even obtain domain names for less at other places, but make sure that you do not tie yourself into a long term web hosting service contract in ...



ServInt donates web-hosting services for new philanthropic effort Indie Music ...
TheHostingNews.com (press release)
By stancom (The Hosting News) – Web hosting provider ServInt, today announced it is donating hosting services for the new philanthropic effort Indie Music ...

and more »

Google News

home | site map
© 2006