Moving web sites and email accounts WITHOUT losing anything and NO downtime.
If you have a web site hosted with your mail and you want to move it, with some hosts it can be a bit stressful.
Been there done that... don't want to do that again. So here is how to do it without too much trouble.
1. Do not say anything to the existing hosting company. Unless its with me because I'm OK. I will help you migrate away. If you feel like I helped you migrate your hosting away from me because you need something I don't do like IIS or ASP hosting then give a small donation to charity?
2. Select a new host like this one. Or another hosting company that suites you sir. I'm great for small Manufacturing sites ( just about the best in Europe). I'm not great for Music downloads or anything 'Adult' because I don't allow it on my servers, it has way to much payload.
Steps 3 to 5 are Overview
3.Start an account with the new host (here?). I will give you a cPanel account with this you set up your email and you load up your web site onto the new host using ftp. Everything will work email and web site. The only difference between this and the old account will be that the email and the web site will be accessed by an IP address something like http://74.52.238.210~username/
4. When it all works and you like it. You go to the place where you registered your domain name. You change your name servers to my name servers ns1.ultraglobalhosting.com. and ns2.ultrglobalhosting.com. Now the next bit is interesting.
when you change name servers wit 123-reg.co.uk you cant put a dot at the end of the name servers this is a littl bit odd. All name servers end up with dots on the end like ns1.ultraglobalhosting.com. 123-reg.co.uk will not accept the dot. I tried to phone them up about it but they were not answering there premium rate support line. Don't worry, leave it out and it will work OK.
When you change the name servers from your old host to mine. Instead of the numbers like 74.52.238.210~username/ being the address of your new web site and email. My name servers at ultra global hosting will direct your domain name to these numbers. It can take a day or so for this information to propagate around the world but that's OK because your old site is still up and working. In practice because the domain name service (DNS) is so good it only takes a matter of minutes. When you type your domain name the name servers will point to your new IP address and your mail will come from the new mail server on the new IP address.
5. The secret is not to panic, set everything up on the new host first and test it out. DO not go Oh that's good enough. Check it out before you change the name servers. You can have dual sites running for weeks if you like there is no rush.
6. how to check is out. The web site is easy load the web site using 74.52.238.210 as a host name NOTHING else not ftp12.12.123.1234. just the number . username and password I give you all this for your account.
When its been loaded up using ftp type the address http://74.52.238.210~username/
this will show your new site. It is already hosting ( its just on an IP number instead of its name)
7. for email the mail sever is supposed to be mail.yourdomain.tld but you haven't transferred your mail servers yet
So its 74.52.238.210 nothing else. the user name is the one you set yourself in cPanel some thing like bob+domainname.com
everything you set up in cPanel for the email is as if you had already transferred the domain.
The only difference is you set the mail server in outlook express etc to the IP address of your new host instead of the domain name. After a few days when its all transferred over you should change the mail server address in outlook express to mail.yourdomainname.com
One more thing if you copy ONLY the index.html page of your last site over to the new site its quite possible that the new site will look exactly like the old site. This is because the new site will use the links on the index page to find everything on the old site. what you need to remember is that links are global. you need to copy over all the pictures and extra html pages. This sounds simple its not. you should take this opportunity to one copy over what your site actually uses. Loads of sites have masses of dross hosted on line that is not used by the index page or its links. get rid of it. Download it to your hard drive but get it off the hosting. This dross could / will cost you money in the end you do not need it hosted if there are no links to it.
What I can do and cant do to help and support you .
Done all this loads of times if you have bought an account with me, its freaking you out and you need help email
I will respond ASAP please do one thing don't leave it until less than 3 days
before your old site hosting expires. I can host another site like lightning (
seconds, if your in big trouble I will talk to you, write up a site ,
press load and we can edit it on line) but I cant sort all your problems out
with your old hosting. try to do it at least one week before the old hosting
account dies.
Some transfers are tricky, 99.9% are not.
What I might be able to help with is Linux, Apache MySQL & PHP cPanel Html ( I'm almost ashamed to admit it but Fount Page is actually an OK web site tool ). Buttons etc
I do Search Engine Optimisation ( SEO gives me a headache so I will probably want money to do it )
I have some global transferable core skills that might help. My e-commerce site is Russian PHP code. FreeBSD servers and desktop and OpenBSD servers in addition to Red Hat and CentOS. I use Suse as a desktop I tend to use FVM2 as a desktop to X Windows.
I have a very solid modern commercial server for serious commercial hosting see details below
Processor #1 Vendor: GenuineIntel Processor #1 Name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 3060 @ 2.40GHz Processor #1 speed: 2400.140 MHz Processor #1 cache size: 4096 KB Processor #2 Vendor: GenuineIntel Processor #2 Name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 3060 @ 2.40GHz Processor #2 speed: 2400.140 MHz Processor #2 cache size: 4096 KB
Memory: 4142224k/4718592k available
The above kit is not maintained by me ( good job ) its well protected safe and secure
100% uptime so far with 99.9% uptime guarantee
I suppose you should say well what about the 00.01% of the time.
OK its hopefully at night its something like 52.8 minutes per year.
call it one hour per year.
I also have all sorts of test beds including a complete 1000 user 19 rack of kit
What I don't do / cant help much with is IIS ASP Net framework Dream weaver
I cant do Chinese or Japanese. If you want to pay a little I can sort out Spanish German French
I don't do Microsoft at all the best I do is front page support for forms ( and I'm not very expert at that!)