Moving a website can be an easy process with zero downtime if done properly. To do so you only need a little preparation and allow for about 3-4 days overlap between the two hosts. Your primary concern is having control of your domain names. This is paramount as you will need to be able to change the nameservers for the domain name.
1. Purchase a new hosting account.
2. With your login information for your new account upload your web content to the new server and configure any email addresses you use/need by logging to cpanel via IP address.
3. Once the new server is tested and functions as needed via IP address, log in to your domain name registrar interface and update the DNS nameservers to those as given by new web host (ns1.domain.com & ns2.domain.com)
4. Create a database for your new site at the new host using phpmyadmin.Import the database dump taken from the old host to this database.Set up the database connection details (database host,database name,and database username) in the relevant file of your new website.
5. Setup remote access to the database on your old web hosting server during the DNS propagation process.For this set the database host to the IP address of the new host,and the database name and user to that of the site database at the new host created in step 4, This ensures that your database stays in sync and up to date all on one server.
6. Continue to check email on both the old and new hosting servers for an overlapp period of 4 days after the name servers are changed,to ensure that no communications are lost during the DNS propagation.
7. After about 72 hours DNS propagation should be complete and if all testing shows your new account is fully functional you can close the old account.
Following the above steps will prevent any downtime for your site and allow you to ensure that neither emails nor database updates are lost in the transfer process.
That is all.
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