server transfer

questions about changing server without losing traffic

[mikeba]

Hi,

This is my first post ever here so I hope I landed in the right category.

My issue is the following. I work for a company which hosts a multilingual website. Our server gave entire satisfaction in the beginning but now behaves slowly all the time, hence people go away from the site before visiting it. We have achieved good rankings in google with all the languages (as well as in other search engines).

We would like to change host cause the situation is now unbearable. What elements should I take into account to make sure the transition from one server to the other runs smoothly? Any issue with DNS or IP changes than SE spiders might not like at all?

Any help on this issue is highly appreciated.

Non too techie explanations are welcome.

Thanks

[oilman]

Welcome to WMW mikeba.

just doing a straight host change is really pretty simple.

1) sign up with a new host and they'll give you an account something like www.newhost.com/yoursite.

2) make an exact copy of your site at the new host and make sure it's all working properly.

3) submit the dns transfer and in 24-48 hours it's all done - you won't exerience any downtime and the SEs will never even know it happened essentially.

[mikeba]

thanks for you quick reply. During this 24-48 hours of DNS transfer, is the url still responding or is there any downtime?

[sparrow]

We've done it with 3 sites and haven't experience a thing.

Our host did all the DNS transfer work. We just sat back and waited, it was about 24 hours for the new IP to resolve.

That's it.

Oh, but make sure your new host supports all your scripts, etc, if not you may have to write some!

[sparrow]

There is no downtime, what happens is Internic simple resolves your domain name from one number to the other.

Nobody will even know you switched servers, it is all very tranparent!

Make sure you change your IP settings if you use them on any forms or intranet related pages!

[Reflect]

You will have hits to both sites during that time frame. As the DNS is updated new zone files are pushed out all over the world (rough analogy). All zones are not updated instantly so during that time depending on the browsers realtion to the zone file they will be directed to one site or the other.

Brian