I don't know if this is the right section for this, if not then moderators please move it to a section related to hosting. Anyway, I'm starting to have serious problems with my hosting company, the site has been down repeatedly over the last few days and it is hurting my rankings and business. When I call the hosting company, they play stupid and claim they don't know when the server was down but it is not possible for a hosting company NOT to know when their server is down. The hosting company is Web Hosting Pad, they claim a 99.9% uptime but that is BS, they are not online that much. The website uses cpanel and I can download a copy onto my computer. I have several questions. How difficult it is to move the website over to a new and more reliable host? Do I lose my page rank and backlinks when moving it over? Can I keep the design? If I'm at risk of losing backlinks and PR, is there a way to move the website without risking it? Do you guys know of good hosting companies that have 24 hour customer service, and who actually keep their websites online?
I use HostGator. I like them. To answer your other questions, if your site uses a database, it is easy to move it. If it uses static pages, it is a bit harder. To move your site, pay a new Webhost, get their DNS number and enter it in at your registrar. It may take 24 hours to propagate the name of your domain to the new Webhost, but it will happen. You will not lose your backlinks, they are pointed to your domain. If some links are pointed to specific pages, remember to rename those pages to the same name if you need to.
I appreciate the feedback, I work hard on my website and it is good to see that I can move it without losing everything I put into it. The site is built with PHP and it uses sitebuilder, the tech guy at WHP said all I have to do is download it and move it to the new host. For now I've set up a website uptime monitoring service which will check my site every 15 minutes to make sure it is online. I'm using the free trial for 30 days, I'm going to get real time updates on how often the site is down and if this keeps happening I'm definite switching. I would rather pay more for hosting to make sure my site is online 24/7. How much do you pay for HostGator.
I pay ten bucks a month, but their price has gone down since I became their customer. Paying annually makes the price go down that much further. Glad to see something helped you to keep tabs on your site ! Good luck.
Ha, I was looking to do the same thing. What is the best way to transfer a WP blog. What I dont know how to do it transfer over the sql database without totally screwing it up. If it were just a static site, you would just change to nameservers over, add the domain to the new host and upload the files from the old server correct?
Use PHP myadmin to download a copy of the database. Upload this .sql file to your next webhost using PHP myadmin. That is a quick overview. See : Apachefriends to be able to do this on your own box.
You mentioned using cpanel; You can contact other hosts and ask them what version of cpanel they are using; I think cpanel has a backup/restore feature. You should be able to backup from your current host and restore to your new one as long as the cpanel software is compatible.
I suggest to chose cPanel hosting and then provide your cPanel username and password to your new hosting provider. They can easily copy your entire account (emails, databases and web contents) from your old host server. cPanel provides facility to copy account from remote server. In this way you will not need to restore upload from your end. Also, this process should not take much time if you do not have much data. Kailash
Log in to your cPanel account, download a full backup to your computer (or provide them with a download link) then submit a support ticket to your new hosting company and ask them to restore it. Provided they run their own servers, it shouldn't take too long.
DUDE I HEAR YA ALL MY SITES ARE DOWN 14 OF THEM BECAUSE OF STUPID WEBHOSTINGPAD MY MAIN THING IS THEY GUARENTEE 99.9 UPTIME, YOU ASK FOR A REFUND, THEY ASK FOR YOUR EMAIL AND SEND YOU A CANCELLATION FORM AND HANG UP ON YOU !!!!!!!!!!! ARG I AM SO PISSED SO MANY OF my customers are complaining !!.. then their 800 line is down all day and they copy and paste the same thing in online support, we are having issues, i ask 3-4 questions they paste the same thing. i am going and registering webhostingpadsucks.com today just because they caused me so many headaches. just finished downloading 17000 files via ftp just incase they go down again, i cant afford to lose it all, still have to backup all my sql stuff iweb.ca comes highly recommended i read tons of reviews and they are 100% uptime. so you're sites sit on multiple servers opposed to one. I HATE YOU WEBHOSTING PAD, i think they took on too many customers and now doing downtime on purpose so people just cancel, not like they are losing anything they already got their money !!!!!!!!!! arg!!!!!!!!