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Web Host Transfer Check List
After putting a great deal of time and effort into developing
a web site, the last thing you want to do is transfer to a
new web hosting company. But sometimes, for reasons outside
of your control, transferring to a new host can become necessary.
Unfortunately, this can often result in many problems including
the site going down for hours - days - or even weeks, lost
traffic and undelivered email messages.
Transferring web hosts doesn't have to be so painful. We
have helped many companies through seamless transfers without
lost email, down time or lost traffic. Here is a transition
plan specifically developed for companies who elect to transfer their
web sites to our servers.
Here's a short check list on transferring hosts from lessons
we have learned along the way:
The Check List for Transferring Hosts
1. Make a backup copy of your site
Make a fresh backup of your entire web site before canceling
your account with your current web host. Better safe than sorry
. . .
2. Make sure the plan you have chosen
on Alive can support your site
It's surprising how often people change web hosts only to find
that the plan they have chosen can't support their site (ie.
it doesn't support Active Server Pages or Front Page extensions).
Just review the list of features on our Windows
Plans and our
Linux Plans to make sure you are choosing the right one. You
can also use our Web
Hosting Wizard.
3. Login to the Alive Control Panel and
setup your email accounts
Before you close down your old web hosting account, make sure
you have gone into our control panel and setup duplicate email
accounts for all your email addresses.
4. If in doubt - let us do the transfer
for you
Transferring your pages can be as easy as uploading your existing
pages or as difficult as a complete rewrite of code. If you
think you might have a more difficult transfer, you can save
a great deal of time by asking us to do the transfer
for you.
5. Register with the search engines
Be sure to register with the search
engines and directories
as soon as your site is ready for launch on the new server.
It usually takes about 6 weeks for the results to show up
from the major search engines and directories. Our Alive
Control Panel includes a basic registration service that
tells the search engines about your web site. You can find
it under Domains Settings in the left hand
navigation menu - a link called Submit URLs.
Then select the domain you wish to submit, and fill in the
details.
6. Your traffic
If your site was hosted on a sub domain for your old web host,
(ex. yoursite.webhost.com) your traffic will stay with your
host
when you move. To move the traffic to your new host, setup
a new domain name - Alive
Domains. If you already
own your domain name, your traffic will automatically move
when you transfer to our servers.
7. Timing is important when you
change your DNS
If you already own your domain name you will have to update the domain
registry to point to our name servers - modiflying your DNS
details. Updating the domain registry usually takes 24 to 48 hours
to take effect. However,
if you are not listed on the domain name records as the owner,
administrative or technical contact - it could be delayed for weeks. To ensure
a seamless transition to our servers, be sure to time your move request
appropriately
and ensure you have access to the email account listed as
the administrative contact for the domain name.
8. Check the Whois database to ensure
your changes are correct
48 hours after submitting your domain name registry change
request (modifying your DNS details), do a whois
lookup to
ensure the changes you intended to make were completed.
Please also review all the sign
up emails you received from us as well as the full
setup details page.
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