Best Time to Move to New Webhost

[Melanie]

I will be moving my site to a new webhost in October, and I was wondering if there was a "safe" period when I should move it. I have a number of high positions on Google that I definitely don't want to lose. Thanks for any help!

Melanie

[conor]

Hi Melanie and welcome to WebmasterWorld !

Google, like many search engines tend to hold their DNS cache for some time, possibly several months. I have never had to move hosts but if I was going to I would prefer to do it mid month, i.e half way between the update, new crawl and the new indexing. Googlebot these days tends to start crawling as the new index goes live and then re-check just before the next update, so these times would appear to be most critical.

[gopi]

I agree with conor . Actually i am planning to move my host from siteturn to pair.I will do this around aug 12th.

But i will keep my old host operative atleaset until the next update (even for 2 updates if googlebot is not coming to my new host)

[Melanie]

Thank you for the welcome. I've been visiting this forum for a few months and have gained so much from it!

Any advice on how long I should keep both the old and the new site operational? Is a month long enough? Will Google view two sites (on the old webhost and the new webhost) with the same content negatively?

[ciml]

It's hard to say how long is enough. It's maybe the number one area where Google could be more helpful to webmasters, without also helping spammers. Judging from some posters, a month might not do it, but if you're lucky then you can stay in even with no overlap.

> Will Google view two sites (on the old webhost and the new webhost) with the same content negatively?

No, that isn't a problem. Google records the URLs; having a URL on two IPs won't matter.

> have gained so much

That's great Melanie, now you've started posting the addiction will hopefully set in:).

[rfgdxm1]

Are you moving also to a new URL?

[Melanie]

I will not be changing domain names. I will just be changing to a more reliable webhost.

[glengara]

- Google records the URLs; having a URL on two IPs won't matter -

Ciml, just to clarify, are you saying a site/URL can have multiple hosts without the danger of being viewed as duplicate content ?

Could this then be used as a "belt and braces" method of ensuring a site is never down during you-know-who's crawl?

[tigger]

ok I'm lost !

How can you have the same URL hosted with 2 different hosting companies?

I'm looking to move my site and as I now get around 80% of my SE traffic from google & co loosing googlebot is a worry