URL Transfer and Email

Email and moving

[kwburke]

I was told that if you transfer your URL to another hosting company, that you can have problems with email transfer. Could someone shed some light on this subject or point me in the the right direction. Thank you.

[Chris_R]

If you have a domain name - you can switch the domain name and all its urls.

You can't just switch one url.

The server you have now resolves to an ip address - like example.com=123.45.67.89

your new host will have a different ip address for you.

Assuming you own the domain name - you need to get a new host and get the dns servers for their company.
This will be somthing like:

ns1.myhost.com
ns2.myhost.com

Then you tell your domain name comany (like directnic, network solutions) to change your dns settings from:

ns1.oldhost.com
ns2.oldhost.com

to

ns1.myhost.com
ns2.myhost.com

then you will have c couple of days were stuff goes to the old host and new host - as long as you leave your old stuff up for another day or two - you should get all your email.

[kwburke]

So email should not be a problem with a new host? I am obviously getting some bad info. MY company just started offering Web Design and Hosting (ala Trellix Web Builder private labled.) They said we could not transfer an existing domain name if it was used for email as well. And of course most are used for email. WHy would they say this?

Thanks.

[Chris_R]

I am not sure I understand what you are saying. Maybe your new host doesn't offer email - I don't know.

I can tell you there is no TECHNICAL reason why you wouldn't be able to switch email from one host to another.

If this is YOUR DOMAIN. You can't switch if it is a subdomain of someone elses or something like that.

If you OWN the DOMAIN - you can switch it.

[kwburke]

Thanks for the reply. I dont agree with what is being said either. It would be my domain,I registered it and now I want to redesign my site and have someone else host it. They are telling me email could be a major problem.

[bird]

The only issue I can think of is DNS caching. There may be a short time (roughly a week) after the switch where some e-mail (and web traffic) will still arrive at the old location, because some ISPs DNS servers haven't updated their records yet. Those updates will happen automatically, but since all DNS information has a certain "time to live" (TTL), that will not happen immediately.

If you have control about your old DNS entries, then you can take measures to shorten the cycle. Ideally, you would set the TTL of all your records to one day about two weeks before the switch. This means that conforming DNS servers will drop their cached records about that domain and request an update every 24 hours. There will be some that ignore the TTL information and still cache the records longer than specified, though. You can give the *new* DNS entries a TTL of about a week right away, which is a typical value chosen for efficiency reasons.

Ideally, you would then keep your website up at the old location for a week or two (or redirect it to the new IP), and it's also a good idea to forward any mail still arriving there for a while.

Note that there are seperate DNS records for web access (A = "address") and e-mail (MX = "mail exchange"). You need to make sure that both are configured correctly with your new DNS service. But since in most cases the DNS services are rendered by the hoster, that shouldn't be a problem.

[lorax]

kwburke,
The best way to ensure there's no problem (minimal downtime) is to get your hosting and email set up in the new location. Get a copy of your website there and verify it's running ok then set up your email boxes at the new location.

Once that's all done, have the current host point DNS for both WWW and Mail to the new location (you'll need the IP of your new web space).

Wait a day or so to let the routers catch up then check the new website. Verify you're looking at the new website by using tracert or ping from the command line. They will return the final IP address for the DN (www.yourdomain.com). It should match the IP of the new location. Verify your email after the change has propogated. Make sure the new host is ready to handle DNS for your Domain.

Resolve any issues with the new hosting setup now. If the problem will take few days, have the current host switch the DNS back to them.

Once the new location is working correctly, web & email, wait a few more days and then submit the modification request for your DN record so it points to the new NameServers (the NameServers of the new host). This change will take a few days to be accepted and then to propogate through the Inet. Once the mod goes through and the DN record shows the new location wait another week and then you can safely cancel your account with the old host.

The reason for changing where DNS points to is that DNS changes take only a minimal amount of time and while you're waiting the current site is still live. Once it changes the new site is already there and ready to go. If a problem arises, you switch DNS back to the old site and your downtime is kept to a minimum.

This same logic applies to when you make the DN modification. Both locations have DNS set up so that while you're waiting for the DN mod to go through, the old host is still handling DNS but as soon as the change does occur, the new host is ready to take over.