How to transfer a website from another web host
By
Staff
There are five
easy steps involved in transferring your Web
site. Simple and easy if you make sure
to be thorough about each step. Take the time
to make checklists, ask questions and have your
plan of attack ready for before, during and the
time period immediately after your move. The
five steps are:
Select
-
Backup
-
Transfer
-
Upload
-
Monitor
Select your new
Web Host.
Decide first what you want your web site to
do. How will it support your business goals?
From there put together a list of services you
would like to have from your ideal cheap hosting
provider. Do you want all-in-one design and
development service and maybe some marketing
help? If you are a web designer yourself, you
might like a provider that offers reseller
packages so you can offer hosting to your own
clients while you design their site.
Back up your web
site.
This means everything! Be sure to check for
scripts that you might have added to your Web
site’s functionality that are server side
versus sitting on your hard drive. Look at the
menu of your editor if you are using one (you
probably are). FrontPage uses the IMPORT
feature to accomplish this. If you are a
Dreamweaver user, the GET command is what you
will use to copy everything. If you have a data
driven Web site and use a database, create a
copy that you can work with and one that your
will archive. Label carefully so you don’t lose
track of what is what.
Transfer your
domain name.
You might have gotten your domain name through
the new Internet Web hosting provider you have
selected. If you did, they will give you the
numeric URL for the primary name and secondary
name server. If you did not get your name
through the new provider, get in touch with the
domain name registrar where you did
register your domain name and give them the new
information. Propagation through the Web’s
WHOIS servers takes 24 to 72 hours. Because of
this time delay you will want to maintain
services such as email forwarding, web pointing
and website hosting until the transfer is
complete. Any domain name search facility,
www.whois.net for example can give you
status as you wait for the change to take
effect. Another trick people sometimes use it
to make slight changes to one of your web pages
so you can tell from just looking at your site
once it is uploaded.
Upload your Web
site. Common sense dictates that you should move the most
Monitor.
This applies to your Web site as well as
checking on traffic at the old site (you should
leave the old account active for several weeks
while you are doing this). Go through you site
to make sure that things look like you expected
them to. Even with successful transfer of all
files and pages, things happen. Test that all
services work on the new provider.
If you have informed your customers and put up
the appropriate notices that you have moved, you
are done!
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