Web Hosting Website Migration Process - Moving From One Web Hosting Company to Another

This article provides a detailed step by step process for migrating a website from one web hosting provider to the next without disrupting the delivery of either the website or email services associated with the domain.

A summary of the steps involved in the process are:

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Make sure you have all necessary information Request set up of the hosting account with the new provider Replicate DNS with the new provider Re-delegate the domain name Copy the site content Test the site on the temporary domain Configure email services Change DNS records. Migration completed

Before you begin make sure you have everything you will need to complete the migration. This includes, among other things:

Domain password or registry keys Access to the web hosting account on the existing web hosting provider Ability to perform database dumps on the existing web hosting provider All SSL certificate files (if there is one) Checked that the hosting platform is compatible (i.e. versions of applications, Linux vs windows). List of all existing email addresses Setup the web hosting account with the new web host

Make sure that the website hosting account is setup with the new web hosting provider. Setting up the account will not interfere with the operation of the existing live site. When the web hosting account is configured with the new host, you should receive all the access details for adding content to the account.

DNS Configuration

We highly recommend redelegating the domain name to the name servers of the new hosting company in advance of moving any other services, this is commonly referred to as the DNS.

DNS is usually handled by the same company that handles either website or email hosting or both. It is however technical independent and is a service that can be handled by different companies.

DNS is where the change is made made when a website is switched from one hosting provider to another.

We suggest changing the DNS to be hosted by the new provider but set the DNS records to continue to point all services at the existing hosting service provider. Once the DNS records are hosted by the new provider, change the TTL (Time To Live) attribute to reduce it from the standard 24 hours to 10 minutes. This allows us to make changes between providers in as little as 10 minutes once the services are ready to be migrated. This is a big improvement on the standard 24 hours since the level of disruption is greatly minimised and the risk of users being spread between old and new sites is so much lower.

We first need to make sure we have an accurate copy of the records from the existing host. The best way to do this is to request a copy of the records from the current host or DNS provider. If this is not possible, with a reasonable knowledge of the services in use on the domain name, it is usually possible to collect most of the necessary information that you need using tools such as dig or nslookup.

Site Copying

Once DNS migration has been initiated we have approximately 24-48 hours before the domain can be redelegated to the new hosting providers name servers. This will give us ample time to move the content across to the new servers. There are essentially two ways this can be completed depending on what information we have. If you have FTP/SSH details then you will be able to log in and copy the files across. Important things to note:

Databases? Make sure a dump is taken and saved in the home directory Provided you have SSH access, the easiest way to copy the content across is to tar up the entire home directory and then SCP it across.

A simple way of copying an entire website if you have FTP access is using LFTP. Login to the server the account is on as root and:

$ su - $ cd public_html $ lftp lftp:~> user Password: lftp:/> ls (just to make sure you're in the correct folder, otherwise cd to the folder containing the website) lftp:/> mirror

This will mirror the entire contents of the website into your current folder. You still need to manually copy any databases across.

Without SSH/FTP access you can copy the site using Wget if you keep in mind a few caveats: Wget will only work when there is static content on the webpage, no dynamic pages (eg php, asp, shtml), no databases. If the site contains Javascript or Flash you might find you miss parts of the content.

Site Testing

Once the website has been copied test it on the temporary URL (as provided in the introductory email) for the hosting account setup and compare against original website to ensure everything is working correctly. If anything is not working, make sure it is fixed at this stage.

It is important that you confirm with the new hosting provider that you have completed your testing of the website.

Email Configuration

Assuming that all email services are to be migrated, a full list of email addresses that are required must be provided to your hosting company. If mail services are remaining with the existing host, or they are already handled externally it is important that you let your hosting company know.

Once they have been provided your web host should supply you with new username and passwords.

Note that if email services are to be migrated in most cases you will be changing the username and password details for email services. This change is the one that will have the greatest effect on the end user of the hosting services and it's important that it is communicated properly. If peoples email breaks these days, it's often more disruptive to their work than cutting of their telephone.

We've found that the best way to ensure no email is lost in the migration process is to leave the existing configuration in place, so that the mail client continues to check the old mail server, then add a new profile that checks the new mail server concurrently. This should usually be left in place for up to 7 days after the change over. It will ensure that any mail that still does make its way to the old location will be collected.

Finalise Migration

Once everything has been checked and rechecked we can switch the site across our servers for web and email hosting (by switching the DNS).

You should contact your hosting provider to confirm a time to make the change.

If the website uses a database it may be necessary to complete a final synchronisation of database immediately prior to changing the DNS.

Complete!

That's it, you're all done. You site migration should be complete and all traffic flowing to the new host with a minimum of disruption.

Web Hosting Website Migration Process - Moving From One Web Hosting Company to Another

Looking For a Company That Designs Web Sites?

When you are looking for a company that designs web sites, there are a few things you should be looking for. Before you start to compare web design firms, you also need to have what your overall goals for your website are figured out. Many web design companies specialize in different areas, so you should have a good idea of what you are looking for. This will allow you to make a better decision on a company that designs web sites.

First, what does the company specialize in? If you want a flash website, and the web design company does not have any flash websites in the portfolio, then don't bother and don't ask. I get asked many times if I can do a flash site, and I say no. Very simple.

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Second, do you want a local guy? If you want to sit down, face to face, and discuss projects, then pick someone local. They might not have as many resources or as much experience as a big city web design firm, but the customer service will probably be far better.

Third, what about the overall package? With web design, you should also be looking at search engine optimization, search engine submissions, hosting, and internet marketing. What one lacks in one area, they may make up for in the overall package of services they offer. If you are not sure, give them a call and see what they can do for you.

These are 3 simple things to look at when trying to decide on a company that designs web sites. While this is a big decision for you and your company, it should not be a stressful one.

Looking For a Company That Designs Web Sites?

Website - A Replica of Your Company Existence

A website is the compilation of company information along with many features like videos, images and digital assets which contains many hyperlinks that are connected to many other sites. The starting page of the website is called the home page from where viewers starts viewing the site.

Web design India is the method that assists clients in designing and developing a website. It is an ongoing method that is required by customers in every stage of web designing from design to promotion. This method has helped the clients to gain global access as through website company delivers the information to the customers all over the world. Through this method web designers show their talent by putting their creativity in designing a particular website. They design a website in such a way that it doesn't look similar to other company's website.

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Professional web designing companies are paid huge amount to develop an extraordinary website by uploading different interactive features on the website. Designers of these companies use their expertise by developing a website. They use different soft wares and technologies for web designing. They use different color schemes and design in making unique website and they also host a website with different version of web As internet is really fast growing medium, it simply delivers the result which can be some kind of information or answer to the question at an instant second. It reduces people's time by not going anywhere in search of information and has also helped the client's in reducing promotional expenses in promoting their business. Now days you can view different kind of websites on internet like static website or eCommerce websites or some other kind of websites. As designers have executed ecommerce websites on internet, it has really made people 's shopping possible on net. As on these sites you come see customized product list with its prices and also you can have a complete information of the particular product as it is displayed on these eCommerce sites. Now from these sites you can buy a particular product by selecting a particular product and then making the payment of the product online.

Website designing companies also helps you to promote your business by doing internet marketing or email marketing for your company. Or by putting a feature of contest on your company website to catch interest of your viewers or by putting blog or article feature on your website in which the viewers can put their opinions in it can really help the company to make them as their full time customers.

Website - A Replica of Your Company Existence

Best Web Hosting Company - When Your Business Matters to You

If you want to grow your business, it does help to have an attractive website design and great content, but don't overlook the importance of a web hosting company. Not a lot of people have come to appreciate the role of a web hosting, but as you know it works just like a car battery, without it you can't go anywhere.

Web hosting is what will put your website on the virtual environment for everybody to see. Ultimately, therefore, you would want only the best hosting for your online business because you would not want to entrust your business to a company that does not have a 99.50% uptime guarantee at the very least. Or one that does not provide unlimited bandwidth and disk space, or provide efficient technical support. Technical support should be available via phone or live chat, 24/7 because you would need your web hosting to be able to attend to your website problems at once. Delayed responses can be critical to your business. You'd also want your hosting service provider to offer cPanel for your utmost convenience. When you want your online business to succeed, you have to be choosy when it comes to your web hosting.

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The best hosting is not necessarily the most expensive. In like manner, the company that offers the highest fee may not be the best web hosting, either. When deciding whether the hosting is good or not, therefore, the price should not be considered a paramount factor.

With thousands of options, it can be an overwhelming experience to choose a web host but you can make it less so by going over web hosting review sites first. Look for a third party review site in particular in order to get an honest and factual review.

Apparently, there are review sites that are more credible than the others, and these are what you should be on the lookout for. Credible web reviewers typically provide you with two review formats - tabular and narrative. The tabular review format enables you to see at a glance the companies you would want to engage the services of. The table shows a comparison of the different hosting companies and their basic features. Narrative reviews are more detailed and encompassing, and further supported by customer testimonials. Make sure that the review focuses on the key elements of web hosting, particularly the uptime percentage, bandwidth, technical assistance, and control panel.

You should visit more than just one review site, never mind if that happens to be the most credible review site on the net. A single review cannot be conclusive. You have to take time to go over several sites so you can see if the data you have gathered from one particular review site are consistent with those from other sites. When you already have a web hosting in mind, make sure that you make a random search of customer testimonials for that particular hosting because customer testimonials are based on actual experiences and these should help you arrive at a wise decision.

Best Web Hosting Company - When Your Business Matters to You

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Service Provider Company

It can be a real challenging task to select the best web host for your website with so many important areas to consider for the same. But in the very beginning I feel an urge to tell you that don't fall into the trap thinking that the cheapest cost is the most important consideration. This is one thing you don't want to do as something that's going to so much impact how your online business will go can't be compromised with money.

Now, let me proceed with what I believe to be very important for the proper selection of a web host:

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Security - Web hosting security is of greatest importance for keeping a website protected from external factors such as virus threats or technical failures. Make sure to check out the security terms of your web host and get the best possible settings for your website security. A smart service provider, however, would always run scheduled backups and try to keep customer data as secure as possible in view of any contingencies. Uptime - The percentage of time your website is on the World Wide Web is crucial as that determines your availability to the visitors/customers. Apparently, it could not be 100%, but the closest the best web hosting company can guarantee you is 99.99%. Anything that ascends between 99% and 99.99% would be better, but don't go for a web host that offers an uptime below 99%. Frequent downtimes turn off your potential customers and are simply not an indication of a good company. Another essential thing is that any maintenance done by the host on the servers/network requiring reboots or downtime should be scheduled during off peak hours and with a prior notice, except if there happens to be a sudden crisis or emergency. An ideal web host would handle a downtime without letting the customers feel dissatisfied by showing information such as "we'll be back soon" or "under maintenance" or showing its email or phone number to contact if urgent. Control panel - The best web hosting companies would always have a user-friendly control panel for its clients to be able to configure their settings and go about their usual tasks without any trouble. A good control panel will allow you a good administration without any advanced technical and internet skills. cPanel and DirectAdmin are good options for a control panel. Make sure you get one of these from your web host. Technical support/customer service - You would surely be looking for a web host that provides efficient support in terms of availability and response. Go for a web host that provides 24x7 technical support and gives immediate response to your queries. You should really be concerned when you come across web hosts that don't provide contact information at all, as there are many available who provide both phone and live support. Domain - A best-rated web hosting service maybe having one of the most important features as enabling hosting of unlimited domain names. How this helps your account is that it's cheaper and more feasible when it comes to paying hosting fees for every single domain name. The offer of some companies of getting "a free domain name for life" can also be worth considering. Bandwidth and disk space - There are a host of web hosting packages, from which you will need to pick up the best for you. You need to select a hosting package with a bandwidth and disk space to match with your business needs. For example, if you plan to insert high-resolution images and graphics as well as have music and videos posted on your website, you need to go for the offer having larger bandwidth and disk space. In case your website traffic grows quickly and exceeds the bandwidth limits, your website could be suspended. An estimate of the future growth and expansion of your business can also be kept in mind while opting elements such as bandwidth, disk storage, and email accounts in a hosting plan. The number of visitors estimated for the first year can determine the selection of above mentioned elements and the good thing is that you can upgrade your package at any time. Add-ons - For companies to carry on their online businesses where either just transactions are involved or a whole Ecommerce system, solutions are offered for business hosting and Ecommerce hosting by the best web hosting companies that include different add-ons such as online payment gateways and payment modes, shopping cart software, online customer accounts and, in some cases, an online merchant account. These options can be optimized according to the business needs related to the customers and the clients.

I finally end it here with a strict recommendation to consider all the factors explained above before signing up a web hosting company for your business. This matters a lot for the success of your web presence.

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Service Provider Company

Criteria of Choosing an Ideal Web Hosting Company

Before we talk about what it takes to be a cheap and good quality web host, let’s get to the fundamental first.

What is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer which is connected to the internet. The term for this ‘computer’ is called a server.

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A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.

With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That’s the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.

Let’s begin...
Feature Offered
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays.
The followings are some of the common features you'll see in most web hosting plans:

Control Panel Control Panel is an interface where you can access your site on the web server, allowing you to set-up and subsequently update and customize your web site. Though cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some hosting providers customize their own so that they can up-grade and expand it at will. Diskspace A vast majority of sites that don't have tons of graphics, sound and video clips or downloadable files easily fit in 50 MB of disk space. You should always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger plan in case you need to upgrade. Bandwidth Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted or received through a unit of time. In web hosting, bandwidth is consumed when visitors make requests for files on your web site and download them to their personal computers. Email Account With POP3 email accounts you can check email from Outlook, Netscape Mail, Eudora or any other Email software. Scripting language As all our top 10 listings are using Unix and Linux platform, php, perl and CGI are the languages we are talking about here. It is best to choose a host that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for the fee that you pay. Database If your web site is going to store a lot of data that should be dynamically accessible (like user accounts, stock prices, maps, Interactive news, message boards and forum etc.), you'll need to look for an account that offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of entries all at once. Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.

Customer Service/Support

No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent customer support? Let us explain.

How big is the knowledge base? This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the huge database, normally it’s searchable. Some web hosting providers will even make your life easier by making a video tutorial guiding you step by step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.
Responsive customer service staff. If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes in a few forms. a. Email support b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with relevance. c.Web Host like Lunarpages and Globat even have live chat support. However, it’s not how many support channels that are available but how responsive it is of the staff. You can find out the hosting reviews and ratings [http://www.top10cheapwebhosting.com/services/cheap-web-hosting-criteria.php] of each of our Top 10 Cheap Web Host.

Price to Disk Space / Price to Bandwidth Ratio

Are you paying too much for your Web Hosting Plan?

Having done the research on hundreds of web hosting companies, in general, we’ve come to this conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you are getting, the more expensive is the monthly price.

To help you understand which price is competitive enough for you to take up the offer, we have categorized 5 different price range. For each price range, a score of maximum of 10 is assigned. To understand the concept behind this, please refer to the details here. [http://www.top10cheapwebhosting.com/services/cheap-web-hosting.php]

Popularity
A web host might have the best feature offered, unbeatable customer support and reliability in place but without an effective marketing plan, it will go bust too. Let’s face it. If a web hosting provider does not have sufficient members and steady growth of new members, it’s very difficult to survive in this highly competitive industry.

We judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider by looking at the number of awards won, the reviews of other websites and the Alexa traffic ranking.

All the hosting providers listed on our Top 10 Cheap Web Hosting Directory are among the top 40,000 most visited websites in the world.

Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee

Nothing can hurt you more than this: your visitors come to your web site only to find that it’s not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly even a sale. If your web host does not guarantee at least a 99% uptime, leave the web host now!

To ensure maximum uptime, installation of redundant back-up systems is essential. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize downtime. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over.

We use Alertra software to monitor the uptime of each of our top 10 web hosts.

As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.

Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3 connections. This is not the case for our top 10 hosts- they are using OC (Optical Carrier) lines.

A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed. Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).

Criteria of Choosing an Ideal Web Hosting Company

Getting A Good Web Hosting Company

If you desire a successful online presence, finding the right web hosting plan would definitely be your major objective. Choosing a good one in today's world has been made more difficult than before because there are now many more web hosts than you can think of. Identifying a good hosting company, however, poses a great challenge to a potential site owner.

A lot of companies are online offering various hosting packages, but frankly speaking, you must know the general standard before making your choice. Hosting companies are distinct in their offers and there are also unreliable ones you shouldn't get close to. It is very easy to identify those who cannot be relied on, they make more promises than they can keep and won't offer you a free trial service.

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A good host must be strategically located in a city/country where adequate infrastructure exist to support its data centre. The centre must be able to operate for 24 hours without interruption.

In addition, a web host must possess a powerful server that will ensure that its services are not interrupted or of low quality. The server is the fulcrum of a hosting company. Investigate some URLs it hosted, especially those with good Alexa ranking, and see how fast the pages load, this will indicate the power of its server. If this does not work, sign up for its trial service and upload heavy files on the site. Then try to open the site at different times of the day.

Staffing must be a top priority for a good host. There must be a versatile, well-trained staff to manage its affairs. The customer care department must be effective and prompt in handling complaints from clients. The labour force of any organisation will determine the way its services are offered and can mar or make its chances of success. The right peg must be put in the right hole.

A good web host must also make use of a reliable operating system for its server. Linux and Windows are the most common and each has its advantages and disadvantages. Linux servers are more popular, cost-effective and reliable while Windows is also not bad at all.

Provision of site-management tools must also be provided by a host. During your trial hosting period with a provider, check certain features like web design tool, database creation tool, PHP support feature, MySQL support feature, email creation and management tool, e-commerce features, etc. These features will make it easier for you to manage your site without necessarily spending more on a web developer and manager.

Finally, a good host must enjoy favourable reviews online. Type the URL of a host in google search box and part of the result will show various review sites that has one comment or the other about it. The internet is a place where you cannot hide, you either do what is right or you are exposed. With the advancement in technology, there is no more a hidden place for a bad web hosting company.

Getting A Good Web Hosting Company

Why Should You Be Using a Web Hosting Company?

If you are planning to have your own website but don't know what exactly web hosting is and whether you actually need it, do read on. This article hopes to throw some light on what website hosting is and why opting for a web hosting company is a good idea. A web host is actually a company that has web servers with very large hard disk space which are connected to the internet at all times. These servers rent out space to website owners who buy domain from them. The main job of a server is to provide space for websites on the World Wide Web 24*7. They also manage data transfer, email and other activities. So for anyone who wants to start a website either for personal or commercial purposes, buying domain from one of the various hosting companies is essential.

For people who are wondering why they themselves cannot be their own web host, the answer is that they actually can be. But some things should be considered before one gives it a go. For instance, if a person decides to host his website on his home personal computer, he should have a permanent internet connection such as Cable Internet Access or DSL. Also, a permanent IP address is also required to provide anchorage to the website firmly in the World Wide Web. The person also needs to be comfortable with installing and configuring web server software such as IIS or Apache. Even if all these requirements have been fulfilled, there is no guarantee that nothing will go wrong if a person decides to use his home computer as a web hosting server. Since a home computer is also used for purposes other than web hosting, the entire system may become too slow to work on. It may also be quite difficult for a person to take care of all the security issues that may crop up in unexpected situations. In fact getting hacked is not unlikely either.

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Advantages of using a website hosting company

There are lots of things a website owner has to keep up with to derive the maximum leverage out of his website. Registering with a web hosting company does not only save a lot of time, but also lessens the stress of having an online business. There are other advantages too.

The website hosting facility itself is quite impressive. Usually they come equipped with a building which houses the various servers. The construction of the building is such that natural calamities cannot harm it. There is also high - speed internet connection and security measures such as fire protection systems, key-card validation for gaining entry, security personnel and back up generators. Moreover, with most web hosting companies having personnel numbering to several hundreds, server software will not be an issue.

Considering the huge number of people available to help you with your domain problems and that too at a cheap price, not opting for a web hosting company is actually not a good decision.

Why Should You Be Using a Web Hosting Company?