Changing from one web host to another can become necessary if your website becomes popular and your current host can't meet your needs for bandwidth, storage, etc. This can be especially true if your site is hosted on a free web host.
If you need to move your site, plan the move carefully. Of course, the first thing you must do is choose your new hosting company.
Once you find a new host that can satisfy all your needs, you'll have to move your website onto the new host's server. But before you do, make sure you back up your site from the old host.
If your website has grown haphazardly and is not well-structured, this is a really good opportunity to think about redesigning it. You might want to do something as simple like a new page design, or you might want to redesign your site's database and content storage.
Use a redirect page on your old site for the first 48 hours after you move it to a new host. This automatically forwards people to your new site and makes sure that your visitors are able to see your site even if its IP address hasn't yet propagated.
A new website takes approximately 48 hours to be listed on domain servers throughout the Internet, but everything should be just fine after that. A few more suggestions to ease the transition include:
1. Find out whether your new host is running on Unix or Windows and make sure it will be compatible with everything you're moving from the old host.
2. Find out how much storage space you will need for all your files and the content that is currently on your website. Make sure that you have enough storage space on your host to allow your site room to grow.
3. Check to see what services your new host offers, and make sure anything you have been using on your current host (like autoresponders, mail forwarding, etc.) is available.
4. If your current website uses Microsoft Frontpage, you want to be certain that your new host supports Frontpage extensions.
5. Check to see what your new host's policy is for extra bandwidth, in case your site continues to get busier.
6. If your new host's server is a shared server, make sure that no adult sites are hosted on the same server. Adult sites can get very busy and slow down all the other websites that are hosted on the same server.
7. Check the review sites and forums for customer feedback about your new host before signing up. These are good indicators of the level of service you can expect.
Test your website to ensure that it's working properly after you upload all your data to the new host. You should be able to preview your website on the new server before you completely switch your domain name over to the new site address.
About the Author:
Alojate.com is the best web hosting company in Mexico, offering a range of services for all business needs. Dedicated servers, SEO, factura electronica, web hosting & domain registration.
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