How to Switch Your Website to a New Web Hosting Company
Posted on September 22, 2008
Filed Under Computers and Technology |
Your web hosting company may not be able to keep up with the speed your business is growing, or your website may not be up to par with meeting your needs. In any case, the best solution to this conundrum is to switch web hosting companies. Before you change your site provider, take the necessary steps prior to the change to ensure that it will be easy, seamless and worry free.
As with any type of renovation project, embarking on a web hosting company change will go much easier if you develop a plan and then stick to it. In order to ensure a smooth and efficient transfer from one web hosting company to another, you should allow yourself enough time to complete each step and then run tests for accuracy and accessibility.
From the time your new site is up and running to the initial planning stage, requires 3 to 4 weeks. After you’ve thoroughly researched and identified your potential business-partner site, your new site can be up and running within 24-48 hours.
Before doing anything else get a complete backup of the files being hosted by your provider, even if you have copies of them already stored locally. Backups are like insurance, you never appreciate having them until a catastrophe strikes. So, even though it may be tempting to eliminate this step, you may live to regret it.
Besides backing up the customary HTML files, it is a good idea to have copies of script, database and server log files. Creating a directory structure that mirrors the one on your web server makes downloading files easier and the transition a lot more efficient.
Once you receive confirmation from your new web hosting company that your account has been activated, you can upload your files to the new server.
You shouldn’t have any problems uploading your information to the new site, considering you already have your files saved in a similarly structured directory .
Once you have finished the previous steps, the new web site can be tested to make sure every thing operates as it should.
The new web hosting company will provide the new Domain Name Server (DNS); once everything is working properly you can change your old one. The only thing left to do is relax back and let the hits begin.
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