Okay, sorry for the newbie questions but it will be first time that I will be attempting this with a decent site (PR 5, small but postivie cash flow). I am currently using Sitesell to maintain this account but am looking to switch hosting companies so I can better leverage PHP & Perl and gain greater control of my site. Sitesell is great for new webmasters but now that I have a year under my belt I am ready for more control now. Can switching a hosting service impact my PR & page rank for some of my key words? Is there anything that I can do to minimize the transition so google can still find my site? Any experience out there from switching from Sitesell to another hosting service? Thanks in advance...
Well... as far as i can see, no problems should happen at all. If done properly, there should be no downtime at all... and as long as your site is working, Google will not have a problem.
Here is what I noticed when we switched. Google PR stayed the same however our traffic dropped tremendously. This had to do with the DNS server not being correct. As far as the pages are concerned, everything is great and the SE's see them as the same page. Switch over on a Friday night about midnight. It will take up to 72 hours for the DNS to fully propagate throughout the Internet. This way you are hitting your website at the lowest traffic times. We are looking to switch again because we are not happy with the type of service for where we are at so if you know of any that are good and secure please let us know. Hope it helps. Wayne www.worldfamousgiftbaskets.net
there is a thread here somewhere but can't find it .... here is my rough guide. Make sure you are in control of your domain (IP MX and DNS) or find out how to control / change it. Signup with a host that fulfils all your needs and activate the account - you should get a temporary access that will allow ftp and testing BEFORE you change IP / DNS. Once you are happy initiate change of IP / DNS or if you must, domain transfer. Thus whilst changing or transfering (it may take up to 72h to dissapate through the net - although my experience is between 4-8 hours) some visitors may start to get your new domain (home) and some may well be on the old. As far as G Y M are concerned they can chose....... If you run databases you may have to do some sync once there is no more traffic on the old home which you can switch off or just let it lapse. M
Well put Expat .. just wanna add ... I would adivse to keep the old site up and running for 7 days just to be safe. Don't do any updates on the old site and also lock any forums or stuff that could be updated by other users. As for PR .. as long the page names and website structure are unchanged, all the pages should keep their current PR.
Thanks and quite right usually I leave the account for 1-2 month just to make absolutely sure. Also concider to have your domain / dns managed at a third party with a good web interface, thus one can switch immediately and there is no wait for any support staff, it's great for backup and emergencies. ISP's will try BUT there is no reason why they have to have your domain. M