Changing web hosts

A few questions for the gurus

[birdstuff]

Hi. My website was down when I came in this morning. I tried logging onto the web host to see what was going on but I couldn't reach their site either. By checking my logs I found that we were down from 2AM until about 3:30PM(EST). I have had outages before lasting about an hour or less, but this was the last straw so now I'm faced with changing webhosting companies.

Now, my questions:

1 - After I upload my website onto the new server and change the DNS settings, what happens the next time googlebot comes crawling by? Will it crawl the site on the new server or the old one?

2 - I have about 2000 backlinks. Will they still work?

3 - Should I use 301 redirects on each page on the old server or just on the index page?

4 - If I leave my site on the old server until googlebot finds the new one, will I get a duplicate content penalty?

I did a site search and found quite a bit of info about this but nothing that really answered my questions directly. I really don't want to screw this up so any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[dnbjason]

If you upload all your website content to the new server then change your nameserver on you domain, you will have no down time (Unless your web host goes down again).

From the only thing that will be different is your IP address. Google will crawls your domain name, so what ever server your domain name points to is where googlebot is going to crawl.

You will not lose backlink, just make sure you don't forget to upload something, so you don't have broken links.

[Quinn]

This thread may be of some help on redirects in general...

[webmasterworld.com...]

[rossH]

birdstuff

don't get confused by that redirect thread (it's a useful one to keep, but,) you don't need to use it here. It's as dndjason said, all you're doing is uploading all your content to your new host, and then changing the nameservers to point to the new IP, wait 2-3 days for the change to propagate throughout the world (and then I always wait until the following month to cancel the old host, just 'cause).

I always forget these chores too:
if there's a mailform, change it to match your new host's system if you use it;
any cgi stuff make sure it all matches paths on the new host;
email accounts may take different pop and smtp;
and maybe more things that I've never dealt with too, if you have a bunch of tech-exotica in your site.

write a list.

[rossH]

more:

you'll have to create those email accounts on the new host of course;

before you leave the old host make sure you note the IP, so when the domain doesn't point there anymore you can still ftp or telnet in and do a last check of email (as your local dns switches to the new host and your email from across the world goes into the old inbox), or any housecleaning you forgot.

[verbum]

If you can tolerate your current host for a bit longer, it's best to leave your site on that IP for at least a month after you've uploaded the same content to your new IP. It's been my experience that Google does use a cache of the IP address, and that it can take Googlebot 4-6 weeks to realize that the site's IP has changed. You won't be penalized for duplicate content or anything of the sort.

Here's a discussion on the subject:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[birdstuff]

Thanks everyone. Great info! This is the first time that I've attempted a change like this and I know that all of your help will be a lifesaver.