Shifting a website from one web host server to another is a tricky and time consuming task. it’s also an interesting one though complicated to execute. If your site is not properly organized, it requires changes and redesigning. Rebuilding database and content space needs proper planning ahead of time so that you can avoid all needless complications. Hard drive space and data transfer usage are important initial factors that need concern to sustain a flow of recurring users.
Your new web hosting provider may offer you best plans which include enhanced performance of your website, best features and price that meets your budget. To know the perfect way to move to a new host is crucial. You need to have a sustained check list that assures all technical and specific problems will be resolved.
Generally online marketers want to know in advance what the effect would be. However, SEOs need to make sure they adhere to best applications and avoid typical stumbling blocks to make sure visitor reduction will be kept to the lowest.
Why You Need to Migrate Your Website
To Preserve Money
Website owners can save money if they select an international web hosting company on a sub domain organized site instead of hosting it on different ccTLDs. Think about the expenses of web servers that are saved as the brand would have more negotiating power over the primary web host provider via bulk purchasing discount rates.
ReBranding
From time to time manufacturers have no option. They may run a lawful risk which indicates that they have to rebrand. Or in time they will need to focus on different viewers for their website. In any situation, website migration is the best option to choose.
Make Simpler Server Management
Websites implemented on sub domains rather than ccTLDs can make simpler server management because changes in sub domains require less actions than separate domains.
Taking Advantages of Opportunities
People like to take advantages of different opportunities and move their globe SEO to the next level so they can manipulate geo web host IPs and ccTLDs. Globe SEO also helps to easily target and deploy mobile websites globally and get higher rankings.
Migrating a Website With Least Interception
With rapid innovations in the technical world there are numerous growing technologies which make it easy to migrate a website from one host to another. Even the though website transferring speed is high, common clients may find several interceptions in the transfer procedure. It takes 12 to 72 hours to transfer from your old DNS servers to latest web servers which can cause a domain to go down.
Important files and data of website, database, software installation, sub domain configuration and many other important things take much time to make your website functional on the latest web host. However, there are some tricks to avoid these problems when shifting a website to a latest host. Here they are:
Don’t Terminate Current Hosting Plan before Migrating
Until you completely migrate to your latest web host don’t terminate current web hosting plan.
I have seen that this is the most frequent mistake done by most website owners. Sometimes it’s not their fault because they are new to web hosting. They find it tough migrating their website to the latest hosting server and immediately informing their current web host server that they are moving to latest server. It’s wise to notify the old web host about your future changes but don’t do it before the conversion can take place.
Most web hosting companies cancel the plan immediately, so you don’t get enough time to collect your information and data. This also indicates that the hosting company will almost junk every piece of detail that has been posted to the hosting server and you will not be able to get these files back and transfer them to the latest address.
So it’s better to exchange all details and files before eliminating your hosting plan. When all things work well with the latest web server, only then cancel the old web hosting plan.
Download Backup Files
Just login to cPanel and get documents backup and database information.
A website that wants to shift to the latest hosting server needs to be sure that both the hosting companies are using the same technologies. This is the simplest way to be sure that information will be speedily backed up and renewed.
Locate the Backup Page
After signing into a cPanel interface, go into settings and control panel pages marked “Backup” which includes tools and resources to back up the website’s main “public_html” directory and other sub domains. Even here you can get the tools to get backup of MYSQL database for recovery to the latest web hosting server.
Downloading Backups
At this page, you get different backups by type. You can take full websites backup and backup of specific files to every sub domain within the website.
Creating the Move
Publish backup files to the latest web host server.
After getting the payment of first month by web hosting company send an email with basic information like domain name server and IP address which can be used to view website content before DNS propagation and to access individual FTP consideration and cPanel admin panel.
Check Working of Database
Be sure that your website database doesn’t contain any sensitive details like username, password and any authorization details to access MySQL database. Add all the appropriate usernames, passwords and authorizations and then do essential modification to system files by signing into FTP.
Shift to Latest Web Servers
The final step of the procedure is to inform the domain name to display information files and data on various hosting servers. You can do this by signing up to the domain registration control panel provided by domain registrar.
Changes to the DNS records will takes 12 to 24 hours to apply changes. During that time both the old and latest sites will operate effectively and clients will see the website content.
Connection between Website Migration and SEO
So finally you are acquiring a latest website design. There are some things which you need to take to make sure that the shift between old and latest web host will be faultless. Here I am suggesting some important steps to make sure that your SEO strategy will not be affected by the website migration.
Scrape the Website
Before start designing a latest web page, run your current website through a scrape tool such as Screaming Frog to record all the WebPages. It gives you detailed and useful website information such as Meta and Header tags, 404 errors, etc.
Obstruct the Website
If you design a website on another URL or a sub domain or any information file that will be available, you need to “Obstruct it”. Popular CMS like Wordpress and Magento let you put the websites into “Development Mode”. This basically places this tag across all of the website's WebPages “<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”>”. By using this tag you can quit the website being listed in Google and other search engines and remove duplicate content problems.
Planning Meta Data and H1 tags
When you have added the content on the website you need to revert and check the webpage scrape that you did previously. This helps you to map your Meta Data and header tags to appropriate WebPages and to identify some WebPages that you might lose in your latest website.
301 Redirects
301 Redirection setting takes much time but it’s helpful to your website. All redirected URLs should be checked. If you run a scrape of the latest website even it’s in development phase you will be able to get a record of all the latest URLs. Then you just need to get the standard .htaccess file which comes with the CMS. To evade smashing the .htacess it’s better to make a new database that has 301 redirection map of legacy URLs to the latest URLs.
Export 404 Pages
404 pages can be exported straight from webmaster tools under Diagnostics->Crawl Errors. Just obtain the whole table as a CSV file. Understanding where to redirect each of the 404 pages can be challenging, as preferably every URL should be re-routed to the appropriate web page.
Robots.txt and Sitemap
Create new robots.txt and sitemap.txt files for the new website. Just so that when the web page is listed, it has a record of the latest URLs on the website page. By using different tools you can create XML sitemap, for large websites create several XML sitemaps for various parts of the website.
Verify Tracking
After planning all the WebPages you have to verify some factors like monitoring from Google Analytics and other website tracking tools.
Backup the New Website
Before your website goes live it’s advisable to take a backup of the current website database and other important files and information.
Schedule Website Launch
Now your website is ready to go live, but before you do it, just some enough time to revise the website. If you find any problem in the website it can be solved. There is nothing more frustrating than a webpage not working well.
Eliminate Tags
Remove Meta tag “<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW”>”, and upload your website to the server with all appropriate files.
Inform Google via Webmaster Tools
If the domain name changes, you need to inform Google via Webmaster Tools account of the old website, once the latest website goes live. To be able to do that, the new domain needs to be included and confirmed. It would be wise to publish the XML sitemap via Webmaster Tools so the indexation procedure can be monitored.
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