Tips to Moving Your Domains, Website Hosting and Email

If you have a website, you’re familiar with domain registration, website hosting and email. For most people, lower prices for services are reason enough to move your website. If you’ve never migrated a website before, you might find that it is a daunting task.

Most people have their domain, website hosting and email service with one service provider like GoDaddy. Some have each service at a different provider. For example, email might be on Google Apps, while the domain and hosting are with GoDaddy. Depending on your setup, migrating your website services can differ in both difficulty level and process.

A domain represents the IP address where your website is held. Moving it involves verifying your account authority and registering the new IP location. While it can be tricky, transferring a domain from one provider to the next is smoother when you have complete credentials and contact information for the current and new registrar. Between unlocking the domain name, purchasing a transfer and entering numerous authorization codes, the back-and-forth process involves waiting for codes. It can take days. A domain is easiest to move before you attach any hosting or email to it.

Hosting is where your website files are stored on an Internet-accessible computer server. Email accounts allow correspondence, filters and storage, and ideally are tied to your business domain. Hosting and email services are usually tied together, so both should be moved at the same time.

Before you start to move anything, it’s wise to back up your website files, any databases and emails. It’s important to keep your current host until website files and any important emails are successfully transferred to your new host.

In order to avoid any major downtime, syncing the transfer of all services is critical. There is no specific order to follow, but remember to have complete credentials and login information for both the new and current host. Stay on top of emails from either host and promptly enter authorization codes when necessary.

Let VIA Handle Your Website Transfer

If you want to ensure a smooth transfer process, we recommend you leave it all to VIA. Contact Julie for more details on migrating websites.