Procedure to Switch from One Hosting Provider to Another

You are not satisfied with the present host for some reasons or found a better hosting company than the present. You want to transfer your domain name and/or hosting account to a new hosting company. You want to ensure that the domain transfer process and switching hosting account process progress smoothly with zero downtime of hosting services. If yes then this article is dedicated for you!

Transfer your Domain Name
In order to transfer your domain name make sure that the domain administrative contact email id is accessible to you. Log into your domain control panel and note down the domain secret code (except few domains). Fill up a Customer Sign up form at the domain registrar or hosting company (new company) by filling up your contact information. Fill up an online domain transfer form or provide your domain secret code and current administrative contact email id at the new company. The domain transfer process will be initiated with the domain secret code and current administrative contact email id. You may have to make the payment for domain transfer at the beginning of the domain transfer. You will receive an email from the new company to approve the transfer of domain. Approve the transfer by clicking on the provided link. It takes from 6 to 12 to get your domain transferred to the new company. The losing registrar in almost all cases will send you emails asking for confirmation per domain name - you can typically choose to ignore these emails.

Most of the companies offer risk free transfers. If for any reason, your domain transfer fails or is cancelled, companies will credit your customer advance account with the complete amount that you paid for such transfer. Also your domain name's name servers are not altered anytime during the transfer process, hence your domain will not face ANY downtime during this process.

If your domain expired with your old Registrar, and you renewed it with them, then do not Transfer it within 45 days of the previous expiry date since it will not add 1 more year to your domain name, and you will lose out on the Renewal fees paid to the older Registrar.

ICANN & Registry regulations prohibit the transfer of domain names that have been registered or previously transferred within the last 60 Days. Please wait for 60 days from the date of registration or previous transfer before applying for a transfer of such domain names.

You can access your domain with the new domain control panel once the domain transfer is complete.

You can switch hosting account and/or transfer domain name from one company to another. You have to update the name servers provided by the new company in the domain control panel if you wish to switch to new hosting provider. The name servers information should be provided by the new companies. If you wish to transfer only domain name then make sure that you see the same name server information as before in the domain control panel after domain transfer.

Tip: Update the new name servers information in the domain control panel only when you are sure that you have put all the data into the new server. Read further for more information on this topic …

Create a New Hosting Account
Although the domain name servers are pointing to the current hosting servers you can create new hosting account with the new company for the same domain name. When you create a hosting account typically you will get the Hosting control panel access information, FTP access information, Email access guidelines, POP3 and SMTP information, name servers information, etc. from the new company.

Analyze and Back up
Analyze your current website for the kind of files and technology it uses. Check the size of website files, scripts, number of email ids, number of emails, kind of databases used, number of databases used, data in the database, other tools used, etc. Save all the website files, email ids, passwords, database names, database users and all other data into your system.

Upload the Data
You can access the new Hosting control panel, FTP account, Email Accounts, etc. with the IP provided the new hosting company. You create email ids, copy website files, create databases, forums, etc. on the new server. Make sure you have uploaded all the data to the new server. Don’t terminate the current hosting account until you are sure you have the back up of the current data and uploaded successfully in the new server. You terminate the current hosting account only after your site is running well on the new server.

Update Domain Name Servers
Login to your domain control panel and update the domain name servers information provided by the new hosting company. You need to update primary and secondary name servers information. Name servers are in the format ns1.99eon.com and ns2.99eon.com. It takes some time may be up to 48 hours in order to map to the new server. During this domain propagation time your emails may reach your current hosting company. You can ask your current hosting provider to give access to emails via IP. Cancel the current hosting account only when you are sure that all things are fine with the new hosting provider. You may not able to access the current server once the hosting account is cancelled.

I hope you enjoyed this little article! Please send your comments/suggestions to pradeep@99eon.com. Visit http://www.99eon.com for Web hosting relevant FAQ and Knowledge Base.