About to change hosting company

Looking for advice.

[robertito62]

I'm posting here because I've noticed jamesR is a well of knowledge, but feel free to move my post where best fits...

I am thinking on changing my hosting company, but I am afraid my humble PR5 site will be affected by the change...

Can anyone pinpoint common risks and how to avoid them?

Also, how will Google find my site in its new home? Is there a risk of losing PR?

Thanks.

[fathom]

There is no risk at all. It is best to set up your site on the new host -- wait 48 hours and then drop site off the old IP.

This ensure that all world-wide ISP's have access to the old IP while waiting for the DNS change, rather than visitors and bots receiving a 404 error because their particular IPS has not updated.

[robertito62]

thanks fathom

[Marcia]

robertito, is your current hosting a shared or unique ID? And are you moving to name-based hosting or to a unique (dedicated) IP number? That can make a difference, particularly since Google is a little slow on updating DNS - they crawl by IP number and domain name.

[robertito62]

Hey Marcia, it's shared. Not moving to unique yet. Virtual accounts for me for a while :(

[Marcia]

A little background on the differences:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Just so you aren't caught unaware, in case Google takes a little while to catch up with the move and their description happens to look a little strange for a bit:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[robertito62]

Thanks a lot Marcia!