How to transfer a Website to a New Service

Why Do We Transfer Web Sites?

The main reasons that most people make the decision to change web hosting providers are excessive downtime and bad support.

Transferring a website to a new hosting service can be a confusing process.

Under some circumstances transfer is impossible and the only option will be to rebuild your website on the new host's server and then change the DNS info where you registered your domain name to point to the new location.

An example of this situation would be if you used an in house website builder provided by your old web host to build your site and your new service doesn't use the same software.

If you've used a third party tool and built the website on your PC, transferring will be much simpler.

CMS

CMS sites like Joomla can be tricky, but it is possible to transfer them. (requires export and import of the MySQL database)

You must install the same version of the CMS on the new host, import the old databse and reinstall plug ins.

Be sure to test on the new service before deleting the old site.

Note: Trying to upgrade to a newer version of the CMS at the time of transfer will usually spell DISASTER!!

The Process of Transfer for Conventional sites

With the old site still active, upload all files (pages, images, etc.) to your new server. Set it up exactly as it was on the old one.

You can usually test the site using a secondary, temporary URL provided by the new host.

The uploading process can be greatly simplified using a third party FTP tool like CuteFTP or, CoreFTP or FileZilla.

If you've taken the time to build the site exactly the same on your PC as it was on your old server, you can upload the entire site with one click on a folder or directory.

Note: If the site contains CGI scripts be sure to reset permissions on the new server

Once the site is tested in the new location, go back to the place where you registered your domain name and change the DNS information to point to the new servers.

New DNS (Domain Name Server) information will be provided by your new web host.

In most cases it is not necessary to transfer your domain name to your new provider. We discourage the practice at the time of transfer because it can cause your site to be out of service if the transaction doesn't go smoothly.

You can always transfer your domain name later on when things have gotten back to normal.

Some of the really good web hosting providers will transfer your website for you. Requires that both web hosts use the same brand control panel (cPanel, Plesk, etc.). When inquiring about a new service, ask if this is an option.