At some point, you may realize that you’ve outgrown your current web host. This may happen if you need more disk space, more bandwidth, or more options or specific features that the web host just doesn’t offer. In this case, you may end up switching to a new web host or even moving your site to your own server. There can be some issues with this, though, so it’s very important that you know exactly how both your current and your new web hosting companies are going to handle the move. You want to have everything planned out so that there is as little downtime as possible.
The first step is to select a new web host. You’ll want to make certain this new host has everything you need and that you have room to grow on it. You don’t want to end up moving hosts again in a year or two just because your site has gotten too large for the new host.
Before selecting a new server, there are some things you’ll want to specifically find out about. Does the server run Windows or Unix/Linux? This is very important if you’re using a lot of Windows databases or functions. Likewise, if you’ve built your page in Microsoft FrontPage/Expression, does the server support FrontPage extensions? Does your new server offer extras like email, domain parking, and site statistics? Is it possible to get all of your old email transferred to your new host?
Once you’re ready for the actual move, back up your entire website if you can. Download the files via FTP, save your site to your computer using Microsoft Expression or FrontPage, or use any other method—just make certain you have a back up of all of your files, even if your old web host says it will keep a back up for you. While most hosting transfers go very smoothly, you want to be prepared for the worst.
Along the same lines, while you’re moving your hosting, you may want to do a number of updates or site redesigns. This is a good time to deal with all of that. In fact, if you want to start your site over from scratch, you can build your new site and have your old site trashed (although do not trash it until everything is up and running smoothly!). In this case, you may not even need to move your old site at all.
Once you’ve got your new site up and running, you need to set up a redirect page on your old host that will automatically send visitors to your new site. Keep this redirect page up for at least a week if not longer. This way, even if your new IP address hasn’t been propagated yet, your visitors will still find your page. It usually takes between 36 and 48 hours for this to happen, but it’s a good idea to keep the redirect page up for a few days after this just to be certain everything is working as intended.
