How to move a domain without any downtime
A few months ago, I moved from a small town into the capital city. I love traveling but I hate moving. I hate packing and unpacking. And even though I hate to confess it, I also don’t enjoy moving my website from one webhost to another. But let’s face it; even if you hate the process like me, it is often inevitable. That is why you need to arm yourself with information on how best to move your domain to another webhost with as little downtime as possible or even no down time at all.
There are many reasons why you might want to move your domain. Websites grow over time and so do the owners of the websites. Maybe you chose a cheaper host even though you didn’t like their service and you were looking forward to the day when you will afford the webhost of your dreams. Or maybe you just want to move since you are a strong believer that a change is as good as rest…whatever reason you have for moving, it is important to ensure that your domain will have as little downtime as possible. In fact, with good planning, your can shift your domain to the new servers without any downtime at all. Below are the steps to follow for you to move your domain with no downtime.
1. Get a reliable webhost
It makes no sense to move your domain from one webhost and go to another webhost that is unreliable. There are lots of god reviews on the internet on the best (and even worst) webhost companies. It will be worth the while to do some research in search engines before you settle on a good one. A good webhost will ensure your domain enjoys an uptime of 99.99% once you have settled on a reliable company that meets your budget; you can go ahead and set up a hosting account with them. Most of the webhosts provide free technical support that will help you to transfer files from your previous hosting account.
2. Edit the nameservers
After signing up with your choice webhost, the next step in moving the domain is editing the name servers. Ideally, you should be having the name servers of your current domain at your disposal. You can get this by logging in to the administrative end of the domain name. This is the most important step since it is the name servers that will point your domain name to the new registrar. The assumption I am making is that your desired webhost is still your desired domain name registrar. Of course you can choose to have a different entity as your domain registrar and a different one as your webhost but I always recommend you get all in one house. This helps when you need technical support for whatever reason
3. Quit your old hosting
This is the last step. It is important to keep your old hosting account active until you finish the first and second step. This will ensure that you do not loose an up time during the domain transfer process. Once you are user that you have completed the other preceding steps, be sure to cancel your old hosting. You do not what to continue to be billed for a service you are not using. You can contact your webhost for more help on how to cancel the hosting account.
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