DNS resolving issue, how to minimise down time?

I've moved one of my sites into my reseller package and due the the username being the same as one of my current sites this had to be changed and has resulted in the site being down for the last 18 hours and is still down..

Can anything be done to speed up the DNS resolving time?

Do I have to just sit and wait, how does SEO effect after this downtime?

Regards and happy new year.

Ian

 

It's probably too late but the best way to do this is:

1. upload your site to the new server but leave a copy of the site at the old server for now - on the new server, edit the home page to add a small text "new server" or something down at the bottom

2. edit the nameserver info at your registrar to point to the new server

3. when you see the text "new server" at the bottom of the page that comes up for your URL, you'll know the DNS info has propagated - you can now delete the site from your old server/host if you wish because now all requests for the site will go to the new server

Downtime: None.

Effect on SE rankings, PR, etc.: None.

 

Thanks for that, problem was my previous host is the same as my reseller host and they had to change the username when moving from 1 server to another as that username I'd already used in my reseller package.....which I knew that before today!

 

It should not have been down at all. Especially if it was with the same hosting company. They should have left your information at the old IP and copied everything over to the new one. Usually DNS propogation is around 4 hours, while I have seen it as little as 5 minutes.

I would check the DNS records over at www.dnsstuff.com and make sure everything is correct

 

True, but it can take as long as 72 hours.

 

That is what most will tell you to cover their bases, but as many clients as we have moved, I have not seen that. It does depend some on your registrar. NetSol I have seen is really fast and DirectI is also. GoDaddy has been pretty average, about 4-6 hours

 

It did take that long for me once a few years back and more recently it was a good 48+ hours for a friend moving a forum. I'm not really disagreeing, though. These days I think that's more the exception than the rule.

 

If the domain is new, propagation is near instantaneous these days. If the domain has been on one server and moves to a new server, then the process can take longer. I once saw propagation that lasted a month for one person.

If you moved to a different ip address, there would be a bit of propagation, but I think 18 hours is too long. COntact your hosting company and confirm with them that they deleted your original zone file. Chances are they didn't, and that's why you're going thru this.

 

Yes. You can minimize the downtime when moving IP addresses ... IF you have full control the DNS entries.

Each DNS entry has a Time To Live (TTL) field. This can be as short as 1 second or as long as about a month. Typical values for address (A records) and aliases (CNAME records) are between 15 minutes and 8 hours. This tells downstream DNS servers how long the entry is valid. Each domain also has a "refresh" period that downstream DNS servers are supposed to use to determine when to recheck all records associated with that domain/sub-domain.

Now, assuming you are running an 8 hour TTL and your customer is 3 caching servers away from you. Worst case is it takes just under a day for the records to expire and propogate.

The technique to get almost instant propogation if you control yoru DNS is to start reducing your TTL values in advance of the move. Drop from 8 hours to 1 hour a week before the move. Drop from 1 hour to 5 minutes a day before the move. Drop from 5 minutes to 1 second an hour before the change. Set back to your preferred value after the changeover. Do be wary that SOME ISP's will ignore your TTL if you set it too small and use their default value, often many times their minimum, so running a rediculously small TTL all the time is a baaaad idea.

Static pages, are even easier. Just make sure both IP addresses serve the same content.

Doing a "rename" type operation like you described with both sites being at the same host is beyond your control and only the hosting site can do it flawlessly. I would consider this a good test of your hosting company and would consider ANY downtime at all for something this simple a sure sign that you need a better hosting company.

 

Thanks for all your tips, it's back on after about 20 hours.

I'll see what happens on my next domain that I change over later this month also using some of your suggestions here and seeing what the HOST can improve this time!

Ian

 

Your domain can also go back and forward from old IP to new IP during those 72 hours. A few months ago when I transfered all my sites from one dedicated server to another I had to make sure all the sites on my old server using MS SQL pointed to the new server. All the sites on the new server pointed to SQL on the new server as well. That way, although at certain times of the day you may be on the old server or the new server, you're still accessing only 1 MS SQL database.

Took my sites almost a full 72 hours to propogate. Although, they appeard to be on the new server within an hour.