13 Things to do before Breaking up with your Web Host
Agreed, it’s a pain in more places than one when you have to migrate from one web host to the other, but when your needs grow and your current host fails to keep up, it’s best to do the dumping as soon as possible. But before you sever all ties, you must protect what’s yours and make sure your site is up and running without a hitch at your new host. Here’s a list of 13 things you must do before you dump your web host:
1. It’s obvious, but has to be said. Find a new web host and make sure that it meets all your needs.
2. Check if you have enough storage space, enough bandwidth to prevent crashes and down times, support for the operating system and applications that run on your server, support for scripts and an adequate number of email accounts and auto responders.
3. The next thing to do is back up everything on your server to a secure location. You don’t want to be left holding an empty tub looking like a fool when you realize you’ve thrown out both the baby and the bathwater. Make sure you get all your email, databases and website files.
4. Upload all your files and databases to the new server and make sure you retain all the file permissions as they were on your old one so that you don’t end up with scripting errors.
5. Get your new web host to test the scripts, contact pages, and databases your website before you make the necessary DNS change.
6. Before you update your DNS to point browsers to the new location of your site, you need to plan for the downtime that results from this procedure. DNS updates take up to 48 hours to spread to all DNS servers on the Internet.
7. Let your customers and website visitors know of this planned upgrade. Make the move when your servers are expected to be the least busy.
8. To reduce down time as much as possible, make DNS changes before you move the domain. Before you do this though, check to see if your mail server is running on the new host so that you don’t lose any email messages.
9. If your domain name was registered using a third party domain name registration company, you need to check if your domain name is a part of your old hosting plan. If it is, you must separate the two, since moving your site to a new web host means that your domain name company remains the same while your web host changes.
10. If your site is dynamic, DNS update delays can cause havoc if you’re not careful. Some customers may see your old site while others have access to the new one. To minimize such occurrences, close down your old site with an alert so that it becomes static while the move to the new one is being made. You could also use a synchronization tool to get changes made on the old site mirrored on the new one.
11. Check for incompatibility issues between applications on your old server and your new one.
12. If you have more than one domain to migrate, make sure you start the process with enough time to spare for the DNS update delays.
13. Make sure all the visitors to your old site are being redirected to your new site before cancelling your current web host. It’s best to keep both sites up and running in parallel for at least two weeks before saying goodbye to your old hosts.
This web hosting blog post is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of web design schools. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.
Great one.
Really a worth. Each website owners must think of it and it is advicable for the webhosting vendors to make their customers know about this. “Every customer is king”.
Great tips!
It is hard to break away from a bad host. The problem is once you have several sites with a provider, its too late for it not to be a big pain. I think most newer webmasters do not research the hosting providers. After one bad experience, webmasters tend to learn and research before they go to a new hosting provider.
Nice article, Sarah!
We have so many people who sign up for accounts with ClickHOST because they’re leaving some other host..and inevitably, they just cut and run and wonder why their site is down.
I’m going to refer people to this article and hopefully save them some grief!
Yes, this is a nice post and most companies will not allow the customer to choose another host. With these details they can be cautious before they buy hosting from companies.
But you forgot the most important step – Canceling with your old hosting provider. No reason to give them more money for a service that is bad and that you aren’t going to be using anyway.
Prior to planning the move, I would recommend reviewing your current web hosts Terms and Conditions. It’s often a step on the sign-up form you just check and don’t review. When it comes to parting ways these terms may have you locked into an agreement or payment plan for a set period of time.
One other thing to keep in mind is that many web hosts host in the same co-lo. This means the core infrastructure is shared (the datacenter itself, the power, the backup power, the diesel supply, security, core routers, etc.) So if you’re going to switch web host because they suffered an outage, there’s a good chance other web hosts were affected too. Make sure you ask where they host. If they have their own datacenter, then great – make sure those items I mentioned between the ( ) are redundant in their datacenter. And if they collocate (co-locate?) with a provider, you need to rethink where you’re going to.
If you operate multiple websites, it’s best to split them up between datacenters and build some redundancy that way. You’ll at least have a working secondary location should the first one go up in smokes, goes out of business, or you just up and quit them.
Nice article & tips.. GoDaddy is one host that is very hard to switch from because some things will not be compatible with other hosts… I was not pleased with my experience with Godaddy but I have had good luck with HostMonster.
Great article. It’s not very hard to find good hosting company, you just have to spend a couple of hours reading reviews and comparing hosting programs and you will reach a decision. I am very satisfied with my hosting. I tried GoDaddy but it sucks, I payed a deluxe plan and I couldn’t even creat email addresses. That sucks. And now for $1 more i have unlimited disk space/domains/bandwith, that’s awesome
try free web host. they are free as well as risk free. You will get services like paid hosting. You can also experience the look of paid hosting.
sagib.com.np/free-web-hosting
I believe web hosting builds trust with the provider and the end-user. So its really frustrating to jump from one provider to another. But if it cannot be avoided for some reasons, an affordable yet excellent web hosting provider should be a turning point.
Unfortunately its not always easy breaking up with a previous host specially if it was a good host.
Cool tips. Thanks, but I don’t want to change my host yet.
It’s perfect for me.
The most important thing to do is make sure, when you cancel, that the contract has ended and you know the date of termination. Otherwise, you will find charges you THOUGHT you weren’t going to get.
Signing up with a good web hosting company from the beginning is the best solution, reliable, good support and upgradable. There are a lot of good web hosting companies that offer from simple shared hosting till high end dedicated servers, this way there is no need to jump from host to host.
I’ve changed hosts a few times and I think you’ve given good advice. It’s important to check things like versions of PHP and MySQL. This has caused me problems in the past!
you bring up the good points. We saw a lot of webmasters shouting out loud for their mediocre hosting provider services. They do need to consider more.
One good point to make sure is to ensure that the web hosting site offers a money back guanrantee, in case you feel that it is not the right place for you, or if you found a better place, then you can move without the think-twice thing.
Heres a guide in choosing a web hosting company, visit:
CreateAndMarketYourWebsite.com
Breaking away is not that easy- migration can be a total nightmare – make sure you have a good tech guy on call to help the transfer.
Stress keeping your old company until your set up and comfortable with your new host.
Yes this can be a very good option for the company, it will prevent all the problems. too good.
Yeah, always make sure your new host is stable, and you’re prepared to make the switch, and always have a backup plan.
Great tip for changing web hosts. Always have your data backed up. Planning is key to success
I think you should also make sure that the new host is better than the old one, otherwise you will end up moving again!
Good web hosting company from the beginning is the best solution, reliable, good support and upgradable.
Selecting a Good web hosting company is much better than shifting server. However if it is inevitable to shift servers tips given here are most helpful.
Thank You for helpful and useful post.
it better to select a best hosting provider in the beginning..instead of suffering in the END of the day your site will be down and your clients like to see the website…
Very good list, but number 1 is the biggest one. Best Damn Web Hosts has some great reviews of top web hosts if you’re looking for a new hosts. Tutorials to get you started and free SEO tools & articles.
I find this topic really good and informative. We have had several problems when people decide to change their web host to another one but the old web host is doing their best to make the change difficult for them. I also find it extremely important to look around and see reviews about the service that the new web host is offering. There are a lot of so called $1 web host companies who are offering the same services that anyone else just a lot cheaper. Many times you end up unhappy with a slow and laggy server. So always remember to ask about the guarantee policy.
Go for a host with moneyback guarantees, server uptime guarantees and so on. The support is the part of hosting which should cost the most so it helps if 24/7 support is available, with phone and email options available, especially if a live support function can be implemented.
If you find a good hosting company then you will rarely need to change servers and with some of the best, if you do happen to need to switch hosts then it is done automatically by the company so in essence you receive no downtime and can achieve maximum turnover constantly.
This is a really useful article Sarah. Do you have any tips for finding a good web host?
Thanks for this Sarah. This is something we get asked at Design Logix day in, day out, and I don’t think any number of articles could give you a definitive answer!
This is an excellent article, many customers just decide to cancel then choose a new host. It’s not as simple as that as DNS updates can takes hours.
Some good tips there! Switching hosts can be a nightmare but these tips should make the switch much less painful for all involved.
Very nice article! Many people don’t realize what all goes into switching web hosting companies. It’s very important to make sure all the small details are taken care of so that the transfer is seamless. That way your visitors will never know you switched — unless performance of the web site loading, etc. is way better!
Great post – there are a lot of web hosts out there that you have to be careful and read the fine print. “Breaking up” mau not be as straight forward as you think. Thats why its always good to do your research first before signing up to any provider. This is a great article to help people avoid such issues!
Great tips you have! Some webhost have a contract that you didn’t know at first and when the time you will quit it will pop-up and you will pay them to be fully quit.
nice article.
but one important thing is how reliable is your new host ?
It’s a lot easier to switch hosts to a host that gives you a dedicated IP address, that way you can fully test your site and make sure everything is working before you change the DNS on your domain.
I don’t know if this has been said yet but there are several hosting companies that offer to do the work of switching for you. This is a great service and can save you lots of work if you ever have to change hosting providers.
I would also like to say that most host switching does not have to occur. Usually a person makes the choice to switch because of an emotional issue. Many times someone gets frustrated with service or support and says screw it, time for a new host. From my experience if you are persistant just about all hosting companies will help you find solutions to your issues. Not speaking about Joe Schmoe and his server in his apartment here. Rather all the major players in the hosting market are adequate for virtually everyones needs. Before you switch hosting companies make sure you’ve done everything possible to resolve your issues. Switching hosting companies will take alot of work, a lot of time and pehaps cost you a loss in business.
BTW
Someone here mentioned they could not set up email with their GoDaddy account. In Actuality it is quite simple.
BR
Woody
Well, I would say that you also plan for the mail server downtime due to DNS migration. This would mean all the mails during a certain timeline will be lost.