I decided to make a big switch over to Joomla. I don't like my site being down so I thought I'd ask.. what can you do when you're completely changing your site and installing Joomla....redirect my URL to my forums or something? or what?
Hi Ashley, Here's what I would do: 1. Back up the entire site 2. Install joomla into a folder on your website so you can work on it without it being visible 3. Once things are ready to switch, move everything in the folder to your root directory, after backing up again ; Caveats: Any hard links in your new site will have to be changed when you move things Joomla should tolerate the move OK as all its links are relative Worst case: you delete the folder, reinstall joomla at the root level, it will be able to see all its mySQL content, and you can use the config file from your backed up copy Hope this helps Michael
Install Joomla on localhost, reproduce the structure and populate it with the content of your current website. As soon as it's ready to replace the live website, pick up the right time for the switch. I would check my website's stats to see what time of the day it is less visited, then take action. Assuming that you know what you're doing, and that your net speed is ok, you should be able to have it all done within 20 minutes or so.
Rather than copying things to your root directory, just change httpd.conf (if you're using Apache) to point at the new directory as your root.
If you really don't want your site to go down, pay $8 (might be 6) to bluehost, mirror your current site, make sure it works, move your nameserver to bluehost, wait for it to change over, setup your Joomla site, move the name server back. It's kind of a pain in the ass, but if something goes wrong, your covered, and you don't have to try and rush the job. If you take three days tweaking your perfect Joomla site - it's the same as if you did it in three minutes.