Switching IP

is it possible without Google Side-effects?

[wanna_learn]

I have a Site about 3 Months old, which is 90% (approx 300 Pages outta 345) are indexed and ranking well on Google.

Site has acquired PR6 during last PR update.

for some reasons if I want to switch it to a different server/IP , is there any way to do it without Google side-effects?
FYI, in past I have changed IPs and got kick out by Google though i have followed all established rules like
1) Putting the whole site on new IP before changing DNS.

2) Keeping the Site on old server for a month atleast or until I see Bot coming normally to new IP.

3) removing all hints from old IP once new IP is crawled
etc.

the above dis not work for me!

any new Tips?

[djgreg]

I have never experienced any problems when switching IP! I deleted teh content from the old server and uploaded it to the new server.
It shouldn't have any effect on the rankings or the the PR.

[vnsampat]

never had any problems in rankings or loss of PR changing IP's or nameservers.

I generally upload the site on the new servers first, change the nameservers and then delete the site from the old server after 48-72 hours - so that the nameservers are pointing to the new location before the old site is deleted.

[djgreg]

vnsampat,
yes of course you should be sure that the site is accessible all time.

[SyntheticUpper]

Google used to be really bad at this; after an IP change a couple of years ago G crawled the old site for 5 months! But a recent IP change went without a hitch and G spotted the IP change in a couple of days.

There might be an element of luck in personal experience though.

So,

If I did another one I'd keep a copy on the old server and see how long it takes G to pick up the new IP. If it continues to crawl the old server you could always take the advice above and delete the content. You're covered both ways then :)

[caveman]

As long as you take the old site down after 72 hours (for the new IP info to propagate across the Web) you should have no issue with any major SE.

[wanna_learn]

Friends
then I really had a bad luck with my earlier sites.
I changed the IP in May 03, I found Googlebot visiting very often new Server till august.

Suddenly this site disappeared from SERP and in December I discovered that Googlebot tried to approach my old IP again and it failed.

how often Google updating its DNS cache these days?

[GoogleGuy]

We try to update it every few days or every few hundred fetches, I believe. I would switch IPs in this order:
- make sure that the site still works at the old IP
- bring up the site at the new IP as well
- switch the DNS to the new IP
- when you see googlebot visit the new IP to get your site, you can shut down the site at the old IP

Most of the time, you can just switch and never worry about it, but if you want to be ultra-safe, those are the steps I'd recommend.

[wanna_learn]

GG
I take your words :-)

past experience was really scary, though I followed exactly what you said.

Do i need to see any trend of Bot activity before removing site from old IP? or first few crawls would make sure that Google has updated its DNS cache for it?

[djgreg]

uf,
that makes a think.
I am not really familiar with servers and the accurate structure of the www but isn't it impossible to have a domain on 2 IP's if you have a shared server?
So every webmaster who has an account for example at directnic.com or dotster or any other provider won't be able to do it the ultra-safe way, since the IP is used by many others, too?

greg

[edit]clarified[/edit]

[GoogleGuy]

wanna_learn, if you see the bots visit the new IP at all, then that should mean the dns cache is flushed. I'll try to double-check though.

[wanna_learn]

thanks GG for your concern
However I guess this is a very common question which bother every webmaster who is aware of SEO.
(and some have horrifying experienced with switching IP in past).

is the issue of Partial and Full indexing comes inbetween?
like the partially indexed sites if switch IP comes into trouble more often?

[GoogleGuy]

Um, partially indexed means that we saw the url but couldn't fetch the page. The vast majority of the time, that comes from two factors:
- a good site was down for a while, and we couldn't recrawl the site despite multiple attempts
- we have to stop the crawl sometime. When we do, we can take the urls we've seen but haven't fetched and index the text of those urls

[wanna_learn]

That means age of site has nothing to do with partial/full indexing?

I guess it has been a real enlightning thread for me atleast, if the steps told by you for switching IP works good this time.

Also now I am kinda sure with what happened with my last sites...
I changed IP of sites well taken by Google , Google approached old IP and as you said "apparently it took site as "a good site was down for a while, and we couldn't recrawl the site despite multiple attempts
" AND partially indexed it.

after a period of time whole site got vanished.

[CCowboy]

I agree with GoogleGuy's steps. The only other thing you need to do is make sure the SOA (Start of Authority) Record's serial number is greater than the one on the old DNS server. It should be for example:yyyymmdd15 (2004021815)

If you don't do this it could cause problems after you take down the old server.

[wanna_learn]

CCowboy
mind explaining -> SOA (Start of Authority) Record's serial number is greater than the one on the old DNS server. It should be for example:yyyymmdd15 (2004021815)?

[promis]

GoogleGuy, I moved my site to a dedicated server a few months ago and everything worked like a charm. Googlebot re-indexed it in a few days. My problem is that the new IP that was given to me by the dedicated server host is within a range of IPs that, for a reason unknown to me, that had been included in an email untispam list almost 6 moths before it was given to me. The hosting providers refuse to give me another IP saying that this is nothing serious, though they recognize the fact that I had nothing to do with the spam. I don't even have mailing lists. What I am worried about is whether it may happen in the future that Google picks up this email untispam list and penalizes my site along with all the others in the IP range. Should I move out of this hosting service? (Which otherwise is very reputable and dependable and I had almost no downtime at all since I joined them).
Thanks for your time.

[Chicken Juggler]

I have changed the ip of several sites over the last year and have never had any problems.

[drewls]

promis, that's not likely to happen with Google filtering from those (so-called) anti-spam lists. Certainly not from the ones that list large blocks in the methods you describe.

[GoogleGuy]

promis, like drewls said--don't worry about that.

[exmoorbeast]

If I move a site's hosting from the US to France, will Googlebot recognise this and show me in the French index, as currently we have a French site, written 100% in French, with 100% French content that does not show under Google.fr - under pages from France.

If we moved it to a French host, would Google bot recognize this and add it to the fr index? Essentially I am interested to see if Google stores the ip of sites and if this takes a long time to change. Or is the decision as to what constitutes a 'Page from France' is taken from the last crawl or in fact that actual search.

If anyone can answer this, I will be very happy!

Thanks

ps. It is in Google.com and Google.fr just not under Pages From France on .FR

[promis]

Thanks drewls and GoogleGuy. I'll sleep better tonight!
Exmoorbeast, the switch I mentioned was from US to UK where I am stationed. Not only Google indexed my site fast but it got in the UK index in no time. I think the same applies to France.

[exmoorbeast]

Thanks. Makes me feel better too. I still don't understand if the uk index is the same database as the .com and depending on what 'radio' button you hit, displays different results. Or if the .co.uk and .com are different databases with all sorts of hitorical information, that changes every so often.

Well I am going to make the change from US to FR and see if my listings appear on the *Pages_from_France* Search that day...

Anyone feel free to sticky me for the results!

[promis]

exmoorbeast, the index is different only if you hit the "Only sites from the UK" button.

[exmoorbeast]

Thanks,

My question would be that does it physically search the same database and filter all non UK IP addresses there and then as you search or is it a seperate data source with sites with historically recored (cached?) UK IP addresses. Ie, could you appear immediately in the pages from the UK simply by moving to a UK IP, or would you have to wait to get in the UK index?

Hope that doesn't sound too crazy!

edited to sound less crazy!

[GoogleGuy]

"Could you appear immediately in the pages from the UK simply by moving to a UK IP, or would you have to wait to get in the UK index?"

As soon as you move to a UK IP or register a domain that ends in .uk, we'd add you to to UK index as soon as we crawled you.

[exmoorbeast]

Thank you, I'd ask you a zillion questions about this and all your European indicies, but seeing as I'm not sure if you get paid or not, I'll go easy! Hasta Luego.

Maybe you should design a system where you get paid to manage a team answering questions about non sensitive indexing information!

[GoogleGuy]

No worries. I think if you were to graph when I've posted, you'd see large spikes on weekends and at night. :) Right now though, I got pulled into a meeting. You gotta love wireless laptops. Just don't tell anyone else I'm posting during this meeting. ;)

[exmoorbeast]

Ok, as long as you don't tell my wife that I am replying from our bed! *joke*

[SunnyDaze]

promis, that's not likely to happen with Google filtering from those (so-called) anti-spam lists.

If G took this approach we could all end up in deep trouble. Quite often the ban list will take the complete IP range - which effectively drops off everyone within that set. Sadest part is that if it does happen there seems to be no way of resolving the issue. We had a client in an IP range who couldn't email any corporate clients who were subscribing to that ant-spam list for several months as his IP was within a banned range. Too unreliable for G to mess with I hope!

BTW:We shifted IP's over Xmas break without a problem with G at all!

8>)Sunny