What To Do When Changing Your Webhosting Provider

Changing from one webhost to the next is inevitable. If you are the type that is always on the move, looking for new upgrades, then a shift from one web hosting provider to the next will be a certainty. Don’t think of this as a wrong thing.

Moving your hosting from one provider to the another is acceptable and recommended if you are no longer satisfied with the kind of service that you are getting. If you have already decided to move to a new hosting service, then make sure that your website is ready for a move. Back it up to your hard drive so you will be able to upload it to your new hosting company’s server without any difficulty. Do this before you terminate your contract with the existing provider.

There are good reasons why you should do this before cancelling your current hosting provider. You never know what will happen if your current service provider reacts negatively. Will the service provider undermine the site infrastructure? Will it tweak the bandwidth? Anything can happen, so it is always a better move if you can be a step ahead of your current provider.

Copying your website to your computer is easy. The process of copying will depend on how you created your website.
For example:

• If you used FTP (File Transfer Protocol), then instead of uploading to your hosting copany’s server you would use download all the files and subdirectoris to your computer.
• If you used Dreamweaver make use of the appropriate steps in order to download the site. You can use the get command to download all your files.
• If you used Front Page then you can utilize use the remote website feature to transfer your website site your computer.

The other important thing to remember is if your emails are part of your hosting service they will not function during propagation. Propagation is the time it takes for your new web address to be updated in all the nameserver. Every hosting service has its own nameserver. When you move to a new hosting company you will need to change the nameserver that hosts your domain to the nameserver that your new hosting service uses. It only takes 2 or 3 days to propagate but during that time your emails won’t work.
Make a list of the email addresses you use on your website domain so you can rebuild them with your new hosting service. You will need a password for each email when you build them.