Changing Servers

[bzprod]

Hello everyone,

Ok...I have read a lot here on switching servers and Google. I am still, however, a bit scared. Some of the postings are very old and I just wanted the opinions of some people who have done this recently.

I have outgrown my server and have decided that it is time to transfer one of my sites to a much more reliable server. I am very nervous about this because this is my main site, which accounts for 99% of my income. If something goes wrong here, I will be quite upset.

Here is what I suppose I should do to keep my google rankings.

1.)Upload complete site on new server.
2.)Transfer DNS info through registrar.
3.)Set up 301 redirect?

I am a bit confused about the 301 redirects. How should I go about this? Should I put one in place on every page? Can I just leave the old site up for about a month without hitting up a duplicate content filter?

Any help as to the exact steps would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to all!

[rfgdxm1]

Since this will be with the same domain name, you don't need 301 redirects. If at the old server the site is on a static IP, leaving it up long enough until Googlebot finds the new server is wise.

[Stefan]

bzprod, it will go fine. I changed servers about 6 months ago. Google had the DNS change in under 48 hours and was hitting the new server with the bots. I left the site on the old server for a few weeks to be sure, but I could see in the logs that it didn't get any traffic at all after a couple of days. The DNS changes propagate through pretty fast these days.

Leave the site up on the old server for a week or two, no redirects or anything, then when you see in the logs for the new server that all the bots are hitting it, and you see in the logs for the old server that there is no traffic, then you can safely strip everything out of the old server and Bob's your Uncle.

[Jenstar]

I changed my DNS servers at 11:45 pm on Friday night. In the Google serps I am showing fresh tags with today's date (December 14th) and the cached copy is showing the copy of the page on the new server, not the old one.

[Jenstar]

I went and checked my stats. The mediabot (for AdSense) found the new server 2 hours after I updated my DNS. The regular googlebot found the new server almost exactly 24 hours after I changed the DNS.

This is much quicker than many have reported. Perhaps having AdSense on there helped - even though the two bots don't share any kind of information, some are certain they do.

[Rick_M]

I have done server moves on a few occasions. The most recent months have actually been fairly quick with Google, whereas 6 months ago it might take a few weeks before googlebot would find the right server. Now, I just keep my site on the old server until I see googlebot doesn't visit it anymore. Basically it means planning on keeping both services for a month. Just make sure you enter your new nameservers in correctly...

[bzprod]

Thank you everyone who responded. I now feel very comfortable making the switch. I will do so first thing monday morning.

[zgb999]

A good example on how efficiently Google deals with the tons of data they have to deal with. I am impressed!

[Robert Thivierge]

While you asked about Google, please consider some (bad) ISPs may take drastically longer to see you (i.e. resolve your domain to new ip). DNS propogation is not as consistent or reliable everywhere. You could loose a few people "here and there", and never know. During the transfer period, be sure that people who see the old ip can contact you with an alternate e-mail address (or other means).