Changing IP address need advice

[BigDreweyStyle]

I'm sure this has been touched upon alot but I am still unclear.

In the next couple of weeks we'll be relocating our servers to a data center. Our ip address will change as well.

What type of effects does changing the ip address have on ranking and will google be able to find our site at its new IP? Anyone have any suggestions on how we can avoid pulling a disappearing act from Googles index?

[Brett_Tabke]

No, it should not effect your situation. However, it may take Google a week or two to realize the switch. Some are pretty fast (10mins to over night) these days, but occasionally, there is still a switch that takes longer for some reason.

[Stark]

I made this switch about 2 weeks ago on my sites... was concerned as well having read some threads here. Googlebot picked up the change *very* quickly - under an hour if I recall correctly.

msnbot and others were still hitting the old site some 2 days later

[snook]

I am in the process of changing to a new server, and will have to switch IP address

I can leave both servers up, and re-direct till google and other bots go to the new IP

Can anyone recommend the best way of doing the redirecting, that will be the smoothest?

Thanks!
Tim

[Stark]

The best (and only?) way to do this if you are keeping the same domain name, is to simply make the DNS changes to point to the new server, and over a period of anywhere from 12 to 48 hours (rought stab in the dark) your users will move from seeing the old server, to seeing the new one. If you the content is exactly the same then they will never notice the changeover.

During this time, the various SE spiders will also move to the new server. Keep the old one up for quite a while after this just to be sure and then eventually you can turn the old server off once no-one is going to it any more (watch the logs to be sure).

[punitseo]

please be careful while transferring from one server to another.

I suggest you to keep the site on old IP for a week or month coz googlebot needs some time to resolve the new IP, if Googlebot visit your site during transition and it finds nothing on that IP you might have to pay. so keep your site on ur old IP for a week or so untill googlebot resolves yor new IP

[MHes]

Hi

Just a precaution... don't change the site content/filenames during the transition. It may be nothing but we did this once and the site had problems.

[snook]

thanks for all the advice

Looking to do the move this weekend
We'll keep older server/IP up till we see all the bots pick up the new one

Just to make sure.
No chance of having a problem with duplicate content keeping Both up during the move?