Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

We recently switched our hosting services and had a number of unexpected problems. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) usually owns the computers (servers) used to move information onto and off of the Internet (and Web). When you register your domain, that`s one thing, but when you start using email and building Web sites, that something different.

Think about the amount of email you use in connection with your business. You likely have more than one email address, like sales@something, support@something, info@something, and so forth. You also gain credibility by having your email reflect your business domain name (the "something.com").

Asking both the community developers and designers, as well as people who`ve changed their hosting services, what kinds of problems did you encounter?

One major issue we had is that it takes some time for "nameservers" to resolve when they`ve changed. That means email goes either to the older server, or can`t find the new server. We set up Gmail accounts and forwarded all mail to the old server to those accounts. Even so, we couldn`t send email for a day or two.

In our case, being new, we have almost no scripts, online databases, or anything other than simple HTML. We heard that if you do have such things, the change is a lot more complicated. So how does someone maintain uninterrupted business when changing hosting providers?

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Initial set ups are usually fairly easy; it`s the transfers that are a major hassle at times. Hell, I have been trying to transfer just a handful of unused domain names I own to a new registrar, just to keep track of all of them in one place, and the process is a pain at times.

As Roland said, cancel the old account as soon as the new site is up and running with no problems.



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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Ronald is right CraigL,
When you switch from one server to another it is wise to [when you first sign up]
Login to your control Panel via the IP address.. looks something like this... 219.98.67.00 or what ever and then once you`re in there.. create the same email accounts as on your old server [this allows for the emails to work once the server propagates], make sure you enter the same passwords [for outlook reasons] and then upload your web site to the new web server...
Once the server propagates you shouldn`t experience down time. it usually takes 24 hours for the server to propagate. Hopefully this answers your problem....




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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Yes, the advice from all of you is what we were told, and that`s what we did. What we didn`t expect was the problems we encountered in our email. It came about through this time it takes to propagate across the entire Web. We had glitches and stuff, but we were getting all our email in the Gmail accounts.

The issue is that if we get an email to "sales@company.com," and it forwards to "dummyname@gmail.com" we get the message. But when we reply to the customer, they see the email as coming from "dummyname@gmail.com." It looks pretty unprofessional.

On the other hand, if the mail came to the new server, we couldn`t always send from that server---via Thunderbird or from the control panel of the host.

All in all, the reason for this discussion is that I`ve seen a number of people who casually put together a business, get a domain, find some host without much thinking about it, and start doing business. Then, when they realize they`d like to change their hosting service, they figure everything will just as casually happen.

From what I`ve heard, it gets MUCH worse when you don`t really own (or have control over) your own domain. So maybe a word to the wise about not only choosing a domain, but also understanding one`s hosting cervixes. :-)

hahaha...
Web Hosting service is a realm of it`s own. Thus, go-daddy has made it very easy for customers to manage their services, it is by far a very technical thing to worry about. There is just so much that goes into a Hosting server that the List of factors is endless.
I have two Linux servers with Plesk 8.3 reloaded on them and even with all the perks, it can be tedious at times... What I like about it though is the migration tool that is built into it. You can migrate your Database, Settings, and email accounts without having to manually create them on the web server. This is a Big Plus feature...



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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Yes, Web Hosting is kind a easiest business to make money online. That is why now a days so many web hosting companies came into existence. Should have a knowledge about web hosting and internet, then you can succeed.

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HostingRaja - A Leading Web Hosting Company in India
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