My website is down! Can I change the host?

[adnonsense]

Hi all,

My astro website has been down since the last 2 weeks and I am losing revenue. My host keeps assuring me it should be up any moment. I am thinking of changing the host but would this be alright with Google's TOS? I am afraid of my account being disabled for changing the host. I dont want to end up losing all of Julys revenues.

Adnonsense

[sem4u]

Down for 2 weeks! I would change hosts straight away!

I don't see how this would be a problem with Google.

[Jenstar]

I would start looking for a new host after 2 hours, lol.

No, Google has no problem with switching hosting providers, and the mediabot had no trouble finding the new server when I switched hosting on one of my sites recently.

[blairsp]

is this how bad the paranoia is getting with adsense (no offence in particular to adnonsense). We will have to check with G if we want to have bacon for breakfast rather than cereal next-after all it might be against their TOS. I remember the film 1984 is this its real life application?

[MaxMaxMax]

We will have to check with G if we want to have bacon for breakfast rather than cereal next

I checked with them and they said bacon was fine, provided no other similar pork products were on the plate at the same time.

[MrAnchovy]

I checked with them and they said bacon was fine, provided no other similar pork products were on the plate at the same time.

Uh oh! I often have bacon, ham, & pork chops. And to top off my doom, biscuits are topped with sausage gravy of all things.

But in all seriousness, there should be absolutely no problem with switching hosts. And even if your site came back online within 5min of your post, I'd still go with another, as being down for 2 weeks is completely unacceptable and shown never happen.
Sounds like ya got the kid who decided to run a hosting co from his parents house in his spare time (or an equivalent).
Kinda straying from the topic, but when you search for a new hosting provider, if you don't go with a well known company, check the domain whois for date of reg, phone no's, etc & thouroughly check them out.

[Marcia]

Absolutely no problem! As soon as that first page with the code goes up, there they are.

I've been moving sites all week (from shared IP to shared IP on cheap hosting, mind you), and neither has there been a search engine problem. Slurp, Googlebot and Jeeves all turned up right away. As long as the URL, the directory structure and the filename stay the same, it's seamless. If there are links to the site from pages that get fairly frequent crawls, they catch up in no time.

[edited by: Marcia at 1:40 pm (utc) on July 28, 2004]

[digitalv]

Just curious, does anyone actually READ the TOS or do they just ask questions here and expect other people to read it for them?

[2oddSox]

Just curious, does anyone actually READ the TOS or do they just ask questions here and expect other people to read it for them?

Probably when it comes to AdSense a lot of people would prefer to hear from 'those who have gone before' for advice rather than (or before they) make a judgement call on their own. No need to cast aspersions.

[JohnKelly]

I changed hosts back in April with no problems whatsoever with AdSense (not that I expected any).

[richmondsteve]

Dear sirs, I am planning on changing my site's font from Arial to Verdana...and maybe having my ISP add more RAM to the server because sometimes it shows the public service ads instead of the money kind. Will Mediabot be happy? Please dear experts, I await your good words.

[Galtego]

My same host changed the IP address for my site about 8 months ago. I requested an extended overlap, where both the old and new IPs had a server, and I had to FTP files to both, because the Mediapartners bot was the last of all spiders to find the site at its new location. I had to make sure I posted the files to the old site first, or else there would be a 404 error on the old server with no ads served on the new as the AdSense spider continued to resolve the site to the old IP for about 3 weeks. I found that regular Googlebot is quicker to refresh its DNS than the Adsense bot (Mediapartners). An overlap of about a month is ideal, with a good eye on the logs of the old server to make sure it can be cut off. I know an overlap is not possible in your current situation. Also, things may have gotten better in this area.

[Marcello]

Mediabot and Googlebot

I changed server 7-days ago and am still running the "Old Server" and the "New Server" to overlap.

All traffic is now, after 7-days, served by the "New IP", with exception of Mediabot and Googlebot, which has not resolved the new-IP and new "Nameservers" entirely yet, and this after 7-days!

Current Google Robot visits:
Googlebot - Old-Server 55% - New-Server 45%
Mediabot - Old-Server 18% - New-Server 82%

[Marcia]

Now see, mine did right away - must have caught it at the right time.