Thread: Switching Hosts Need advice

If you are going to Hostgator this is a snap. Read this article at Hostgator:

How to switch hosts without having any down time.

Note in particular these two points:

1. Do not tell your old host! They could close down your site. Not ethical, but not unheard of.
2. Look at point two in particular where it says that Hostgator will do it for you if you want. I would recommend taking them up on that.

In addition, I would personally recommend doing a simple file download of your complete site as a backup now. Also you need to download your database files for WordPress. This is a little bit slow because WordPress is a big program but I would recommend it.

Thank you James! Very helpful information here! The one thing I am wondering about is when I signed up with them they had a deal for a "free domain for life" which of course is only free if you stay with them. The site in question is the only domain I have with them and is the "free domain for life". I am wondering how to handle this particular aspect as well?

I read a few stories of how people who did not switch hosts before renewal time had a hard time with this particular host. I am going to definitely be switching before renewal time is up. Do you have any experience or know anything about this kind of situation? Thanks again you have already been a huge help!

James is on the mark. Also, Hostgator is a good choice.

One thing you didn't mention is who did you register your domain name with? Hopefully, its not the same as your current host as you will need to change the DNS of your domain name as you change hosts.

Neil

The site in question is the only domain I have with them and is the "free domain for life".

This is your most serious concern, no doubt. I cannot really tell you with any authority your best course, but if you can go ahead and plan your move sooner rather than later, I would contact Hostgator service and explain that you want to move hosting but are concerned about the domain registration since it is provided free with your current hosting. I would follow their advice, remembering to back up yourself first as recommended before.

Originally Posted by Seanguy75

Thank you James! Very helpful information here! The one thing I am wondering about is when I signed up with them they had a deal for a "free domain for life" which of course is only free if you stay with them. The site in question is the only domain I have with them and is the "free domain for life". I am wondering how to handle this particular aspect as well?

I read a few stories of how people who did not switch hosts before renewal time had a hard time with this particular host. I am going to definitely be switching before renewal time is up. Do you have any experience or know anything about this kind of situation? Thanks again you have already been a huge help!

HostGator no longer has a "free domain for life", but instead offers free domain transfers to their accounts. More info here - hxxp://secure.hostgator.com/freedomaintransfer.php

(remove the xx and replace with tt -- I dont have enough posts to post a link yet)

A simple advice - Accepting the free domain from the host is a bad idea, simply because it is not easy to transfer the domain when you need to transfer the site. Don't use Hostgator either for the domains. First move your domain name to an ICANN approved registrar (which should cost you $10 / year, but worth the money) and keep the name servers pointing to the old host itself. Then buy new account with Hostgator and move the site(then will auto transfer if the old host is also cPanel). Once it is moved and set up on hostgator, edit the name servers to point the domain name to the new location.

I am trying to find definitive answers and having a hard time so I thought I would try here. Does doing a full file and database backup, save all of the content of your posts and pages??? Like the text content. Otherwise I will have to go through each post and copy and paste/save my content...as that is one of the most important things. Thank you for any help again.

Hey Sean,

Does you current host have cpanel? If so, you can do a FULL backup right from your account. Then when you move to Hostgator, they can transfer it right into their cpanel system. This even transfers your email accounts, databases, etc. and everything sets up like it was. I just recently did this and it was such a smooth transition. I didn't have to set up anything.

Now if you only have one site and one database, you can just backup your database within cpanel, but if you have multiple add on domains, email accounts, etc. it's easier to backup from cpanel and have Hostgator just port it over.

Yes I do have Cpanel and I will look into this. I just signed up with hostgator and they are going to be transferring all of my stuff over apparently within the next few days. They have a transfer form you fill out and then you get one free transfer. I hope this is related to this. I will also back my stuff up as well though. I think i did a backup using a plugin, I am just so new to this that I want to be sure I am doing everything right.

Lisa have you ever heard of sites that give away "free domains" when you sign up with them? I had Hostgator check the domain which I guess anyone can do...(Again not the area I have put a lot of research into). And they said that basically the "free domain" is registered to the host that I am with. So the "free" is basically them paying for the domain and also holding it apparently.

My concern is how this is going to go when I am trying to transfer this domain out and how the heck am I going to re register it to my name? I have read some stuff from people who have had some issues and I am trying to handle this as good as possible because my once small site is growing and I would like to have actual ownership of the domain.(If I would of only knew back then when I first signed up for all of this!).

Have you ever heard of anyone dealing with this kind of thing successfully? Basically I have a month or two left on my hosting contract with them and I am going to ask them if I can take over the domain myself before this is up, which in turn they will find out I am leaving their hosting...lol. I have seen they have some bad reviews and etc, so I am going to offer them a good review or comment anywhere of their choice about how smooth they handled my problem if they will help me with this. I am hoping this might be incentive for them to help instead of making it harder for me.

Originally Posted by Seanguy75

Yes I do have Cpanel and I will look into this. I just signed up with hostgator and they are going to be transferring all of my stuff over apparently within the next few days. They have a transfer form you fill out and then you get one free transfer. I hope this is related to this. I will also back my stuff up as well though. I think i did a backup using a plugin, I am just so new to this that I want to be sure I am doing everything right.

Lisa have you ever heard of sites that give away "free domains" when you sign up with them? I had Hostgator check the domain which I guess anyone can do...(Again not the area I have put a lot of research into). And they said that basically the "free domain" is registered to the host that I am with. So the "free" is basically them paying for the domain and also holding it apparently.

My concern is how this is going to go when I am trying to transfer this domain out and how the heck am I going to re register it to my name? I have read some stuff from people who have had some issues and I am trying to handle this as good as possible because my once small site is growing and I would like to have actual ownership of the domain.(If I would of only knew back then when I first signed up for all of this!).

Have you ever heard of anyone dealing with this kind of thing successfully? Basically I have a month or two left on my hosting contract with them and I am going to ask them if I can take over the domain myself before this is up, which in turn they will find out I am leaving their hosting...lol. I have seen they have some bad reviews and etc, so I am going to offer them a good review or comment anywhere of their choice about how smooth they handled my problem if they will help me with this. I am hoping this might be incentive for them to help instead of making it harder for me.

But isn't the domain still in your name? I guess I don't understand why you can't just transfer it and pay the transfer fee or whatever the site you're transferring it to may charge. I've never got a "free domain" before so I'm not sure how it works. I thought they usually gave it to you free for a year and then you paid on it yearly like any other domain.

If you are going to Hostgator this is a snap.

I hope this comment of mine was not premature! Let us know what happens here. I think a lot of folks will be listening and learning from your experience. I hope it works out well.

I use Dreamhost primarily and they give a free registration with your hosting each year, but it is not associated with a particular domain name (you are credited for payment when you renew registrations) . I have several domains and usually renew them a little early so when I get to paying for them I am notified that I have a free registration and asked if I want to apply it. As a result (after quite a few years) my free registration has been passed around each year and I do not even remember which domain it was given to last.

If you did not get a privacy arrangement set up you can find out quickly who owns the domain, you or this company. Just go to whois.net and search for your domain. It will tell you who owns it. If you have a privacy arrangement it will look as if the host owns it in a way but not quite.

Here is an example of one of mine that does so you can see that it refers to Dreamhost, but if you look carefully you will see that it shows they are just managing the information for me, that I am a "Private Registrant." You can tell, too, by looking at the contact information in this case. Your results may be a bit different but you should be able to tell if if is a private registrant and if it is in your name it will directly say so.

Domain Name: mydomain.com
Registrant Contact:
mydomain.com Private Registrant mydomainb.com@proxy.dreamhost.com
DreamHost Web Hosting
417 Associated Rd #324
Brea, CA 92821
US
+1.7147064182

Hi Sean,

If you do not want any downtime I would buy a hosting account and transfer files over and then change the domain name servers and get rid of your old hosting account after they have resolved. If the domain is with them then you can transfer this but this could cause minor downtime.

Can this free domain be unlocked and an EPP code requested? This should be all you need. You then purchase a transfer window from your new registrar.

Thank you everyone for all of your responses they are very appreciated. Here is what I am doing so far. I have bought a hosting package with hostgator and am waiting for them to respond to me after they have finished transferring my database and files to their side of things. Once that is done I am going to be contacting the host I am currently with and will be asking to be able to take over the domain name myself and get the EPP code. Apparently when you get the "free" domain, what happens is that they pay for it so it is free cashwise, but it is registered to their name I believe.

If I read some stuff right though, it is in the agreement that the domain is yours to takeover if you request this before your hosting year is up. It can be yours either way, but if you wait until after the year of your hosting contract is up you will either have to renew your contract an then pay to buy the domain, plus a $15 fee for them to take care of the domain transfer to you. Or you can decide not to host with them and then pay the $25 for the domain transfer and repurchase and also have to pay some fee of $200 or so to ENOM which is the registrar they are buying the domain through.... I don't know...

What made me nervous before was that I read someone who had a bad experience with the whole thing and was getting charged somewhere around $250 total for the whole deal, which is ludicrous. The host responded to the complaint and explained that it was because they wanted to change the domain after their hosting contract had expired and so their were other fees involved. They said that if the person had done this all before the contract expired that it should only cost $25 total for the domain name to be transferred completely to them.

I also read some other sketchy reviews about the host along the way after I was already with them for awhile, so that is part of why I was nervous. They seemed to have responded to most of these reviews explaining their side of things and that they were supposedly in the right and that these people were interpreting it wrong so we will see.

I am choosing to think positive here and will give them the benefit of the doubt by proceeding as if what I have read will work. So it should be $25 at the most to pay for the domain myself and then for some reason pay them a fee to handle the transfer of the domain to me. At this time I will be able to get the EPP code I am assuming and then point the dns to the new host as well as whatever else I have to do... Hostgator gives you one free host transfer and domain transfer, so I will be using those both.

If this all works out for me I will be sure to give credit to the host that I am currently with and let everyone know who they are and that it went smooth. If it does not go smooth, I will be sure to let everyone know who they are and how it did not go smooth. Again I am trying to be positive and just proceed as if what I saw the host say in response to the complaints to be true. If so then $25...Bada bing and I am on my way.

I am just waiting to hear from hostgator who so far has been very helpful with all of this. I will then send an email to my current host letting them know that I would like ownership of the domain(The EPP, etc) and that I will be transferring to a different host before my contract is up with them so that I have plenty of time before that runs out. I started hosting with my current host on May the 5th 2012 so I should be completely good here.

Sorry if this is long winded...I thought maybe it would be good to be descriptive so others ever having this problem could see a more thorough explanation of the entire thing. I thought about posting the name of my current host now, but maybe it would be more prudent to wait to see which way this goes and think the best. I am assuming this will go smoothly, but if I have any problems I will be sure to let them know that I am a member of some forums and communities that are related to everything website oriented with plenty of active members who read the posts, and that I have a running thread related to the situation.

I will post when I send them the email to keep a record here if that is cool. If it wasn't for the odd reviews and comments I read about them, I would not even think twice about all of this. Thank you again everyone and I am sure this will all be simpler than I think. lol.