Changing hosts to Westhost

What to do about changing from one host to another

[Hollywood]

I changed my host from Netfirms.com to Westhost.com

What do I need to know, is this going to royally screw up my pagerank and my SERPS?

Is there a way to get around this with Google, do I need to contact them, if so which way is best?

I need all the help I can get, look forward to any Webmasterworld member to help me out with this.

All best!

[jdMorgan]

Hollywood,

This post [webmasterworld.com] from yesterday, plus a WebmasterWorld site search for "moving site" or "changing hosts" may be useful.

The bottom line is: plan to keep a copy of your site on your old server for at least a month, until Googlebot stops crawling it and switches over to your new server.

HTH,
Jim

[Hollywood]

What happens if I am not able to keep an exact copy on my other site? (Previous site)

Thanks

[jdMorgan]

Then you risk having Google index that old site for another month or two. This is due to the way Google caches DNS information - It may spider your old IP address for a period of time. This may not be too serious, or it may be quite bad, but it is nowhere near as bad as having your site dropped because it is gone from the old server.

There are also several threads on this subject floating around here.

Jim

[kyr01]

I moved my site at the end of January, and this obviously involved an IP change.
Googlebot was able to find and visit the new site in about three days. Since then I had quite a bit of visits, including a fair number of deep crawls (probably more than usual).
Even if a lot of people reasonably suggest to keep the old site available for at least one month, I banned all bots (including Googlebot, of course) from the old site right after the first visit of Googlebot to the new IP, fearing of being tagged for duplicated content.
I don't know if I was just lucky moving the site right before of Google's DNS update, but I must say that many other bots found the new IP right away.
Still waiting to see if anything goes wrong (hopefully not!) with the next dance, but it seems to me that moving a site is a pretty straightforward deal. As long as Google finds you at the new IP, I don't see why you should keep the access to the old site and risk to be tagged for duplicated content.

[Hollywood]

Thanks KYR01 and JDMORGAN ... more comments regarding Netfirms and new host.

Word has it JDMorgan is a skilled ip blocker, good work with helping out on that JD w/others!

ON TOPIC
I have an assigned ip address at westhost.com, I think this is much better... My last site is showing a site cancelled page... I have my domain pointing to the new assigned ip address and I wonder if this helps. (I changed the DNS Nameservers to point to westhost - using exact same site structure and content on my new host server via ftp)(Having an assigned ip at new host)

P.S. Is googe dance happening yet, I have not seen any comments on this yet on the boards?

Hollywood

[edited by: Marcia at 9:30 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2003]

[Marcia]

Hollywood, see if your site still comes up at the previous host using the "free" type of subdomain address they give. If so, put up a link to the new site saying you've moved - and link using the new IP number you've been assigned by WestHost.

Either way, put up at least one link to the new site using the IP number, since Google uses both. That's the advantage of a dedicated IP number - it's so much better if a site is moved than from a shared IP.

[Hollywood]

Thanks all for some good reading

I asked netfirms to do this for me, but I doubt they will. Show Redirect with new ip address.

My site already has new dns nameservers pointing to my new host... even though the free domain part such as [xyz.netfirms.com...] is showing the same page "page is cancelled" result

I am hoping the site www.zyx.com is going to get properly indexed by google.

My site had a 5/10 pagerank and I am worried this will cause huge problems.