1. sign up with my new host
2. log into the server that I'm hosted on and get my email and web site set up
3. change the name server entries at my domain name registrar to the new host's
4. wait for the changes to propagate
5. log into my old host's server and check for email that got routed there before full propagation
6. cancel my old hosting account
7. clap and squeal


Is there anything I'm leaving out?

Nope...thats everything!

moving from where to where?

Originally posted by squeebo
Is there anything I'm leaving out? One thing that almost everyone leaves out, but that's very important if you have good search engine positioning that you don't want to risk losing: put a 301 permanent redirect in your .htaccess on the old site, and keep both sites active for at least a month.

8. Break out the celebration-beverage-of-choice.

:beer:

Oh - one thing:

Before you cancel your old account, if you have credit card information stored with this host, go in and change it somehow so that it won't work. Swapping numbers might just put it onto some other poor moop - change the expiration date, or delete it altogether. This will mean that your host can't keep charging you for services you're no longer receiving.

Admittedly kind of sneaky; but I've seen enough tales of people who've changed hosts and the former company continues to charge them.

That should probably be item 2a.

Are you just assuming or really leaving?

Watch out where you control panel is hosted i.e. mine is domain.com/cgi-bin/member_area
but if DNS has propgated then domain.com will not resolve to previous host. Check that this is not the case for you before you set the changes in motion.

I don't understand why the redirect is necessary. Would the search engines have my old server's IP cached?

I'm moving from Jaguar to site5.

And on that note, is there a Redirect line that'll redirect all requests? Or do I need to have one line per directory? I'm unable to find some good documentation for the Redirect directive.

#6 is important.

I can't tell you how many of our former customers seemed to think that we would somehow know that they've left us for another host, or that they've decided to end their hosting altogether. Until you actually cancel your account with your web host there really isn't any easy way for them to realize that you've switched hosts.

Checking DNS is one way to do it, but when you've got thousands of customers, it quickly becomes impractical.

We're happy to work with customers once they realize their error, but the chargebacks get a little annoying! :)

Originally posted by squeebo
I don't understand why the redirect is necessary. Would the search engines have my old server's IP cached? Yep, some -- including Google -- do cache IP addresses. It's not always going to cause a problem, but depending on on when they refresh that cached address and how that comes into play with your move and the timing of their crawl of your site, it might.

So the redirect is one approach. If you're concerned about Google (and you should be), another idea is to not move right before an expected deep crawl. Which means, don't move today for example unless you know you've already been crawled... watch your logs for an extensive visit from googlebot, which will probably come within the next few days (if you haven't seen it in the past few).

But perhaps the best approach is the simplest (though not the cheapest). Set up the new site, change the dns settings for your domain name, and leave the old site up for a month (or two) for any spiders that still have the old IP cached.

Yes, i had some problems with the old server on the meta tags.. they are still there i havent changed them

Won't google get mad if you have the same site on servers??

Is there anyway to just redirect to the new site ??

Originally posted by John80y
Won't google get mad if you have the same site on servers??The point is that Google will only go to one of the sites, but you can't be sure which one. You use the same domain name for each, so you're not risking "duplicate content" problems.Is there anyway to just redirect to the new site ?? Yes, there are a couple of ways to go about that, such as using mod-rewrite or using a 301 permanent redirect in your .htaccess -- the kinds of things I was talking about above. They can be complex, and there are some chances of trouble if you don't do it right, but you can take that approach.