Things to Know Before You Change Your Web Hosting Provider
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 a move become necessary, be sure to plan it carefully. The first step is to decide on a new hosting company, of course.
After you have found a web host that is able to meet your needs, you must move your website onto the new server. Before you move it, make sure that you back up your website from your 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.
You should use a redirect page on your old website for the first 48 hours after moving to a new web host. This will automatically forward your site’s visitors to the new location and ensure that people will see the new website even if its IP address has not 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. Find out what services are offered by your new host and make sure that they include everything you have been using on your current host, including autoresponders, email forwarding, etc.
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 the new host’s server is a shared server, check to make sure there are no adult sites hosted on the same system. They can get busy and cause all the other sites on the same server to slow down.
7. Check some review sites and forums so that you can read some customer feedback about your new host before you sign up. This will give you a good indication of the type of service you can expect.
After you have uploaded your data to the new web host, test your site to ensure that it is working correctly. You should be able to preview your website on the new host before you complete the domain name switch to the new address.
Founder and actual CEO, Ricardo d’Argence has been in the field for more than 20 years. Alojate.com is now one of the best web hosting providers in Mexico, offering a range of services for all business needs. Servidores dedicados, Search Engine Optimization, factura electronica, web hosting & domain registration.