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How to Move Your Website
From One Host To Another Host
Moving your website from one host to another host is fairly simple and for
most sites can be done without any downtime on your website.
Checklist For websites without databases
- Find a new hosting provider and purchase a hosting account
- Upload your website content to the new hosting account. You will be able
to check that it works as expected by surfing to the IP address (type the IP
address into the browser instead of a domain name)
- Login to your domain name account and change the nameservers over to your
new hosting company. Typically 2 nameservers are setup - they may look like
this ns1.hostingcompany.com. If you bought your domain from your current
hosting company then you may have to ask them to do it.
- It would normally take 24-48hrs for the nameservers to propagate, once
they are updated your website will automatically be served up from your new
hosting company
- Cancel your old hosting account once the nameservers have updated. A easy
way to tell if they have updated is to make a slight change on the old
website, once you don't see that anymore then you know it has switched over
and you can cancel your old account.
Checklist For Websites With A Databases
If you have a database then you need to ensure that the database retains its
integrity and no data is lost in the transfer. If you have a database that is
not written to much then the switch can be close to the above scenario.
- Find a new hosting provider and purchase a hosting account
- Backup your database and FTP it to your development PC or your home PC
- Upload your website to the new hosting account. You will be able to check
that it works as expected by surfing to the IP address (type the IP address
into the browser instead of a domain name).
- Create a database with the same name as your old database and the restore
it using the backup file.
- Login to your domain name account and change the nameservers over to your
new hosting company. Typically 2 nameservers are setup - the look like this
ns1.hostingcompany.com. If you bought your domain from your current hosting
company then you may have to ask them to do it.
- It normally takes 24-48hrs for the nameservers to update, once they do
your website will automatically be served up from your new hosting company
Ideally you should stop your website until the nameservers update so that the
database maintains its integrity. Remember until the site switches over to the
new host, anybody using the existing site will write data to the database on the
existing site.
One alternative is to setup the old site so that it writes to the database on
the new site. Your new host will be able to help you with this.
Cancel your old hosting account once the nameservers have updated. A easy way
to tell if they have updated is to make a slight change on the old website, once
you don't see that anymore then you know it has switched over and you can cancel
your old account.
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