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Domain Registration and Hosting Transfer

I am in a kind of situation here and I need your help. I have a domain (www.myowndomainname.com), which is registered and hosted by a reseller in UK. The company helped in designing the website and also registered and hosts the website. More so with the package, I can only administer the website by logging into a portal (CMS) to make required changes, meaning I do not have control access over the registration and hosting. Apart from that, it is very expensive to the extent that my company pays 144Pounds for registration + hosting yearly, 45Pounds for every 5 email addresses and 10Pounds for every 2G space for email. That is too much at this age and time guys.

I now plan to move everything to hostgator.com and that is where I need help. What do you think should be done first? Moving the hosting or the domain name and how will I need to go about it? What checklist do I need to have? How do I move the emails and web files?

I want to be able to do this hitch-free knowing that moving a domain name will take at least 7 days (Will the website will be down throughout that time?)

All responses will be highly appreciated.

Thank You

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  • What do you mean with "The company ... registered ... the website". If your hosting company registered the domain on their name, they are in fact the domain owner and you need to seriously fight to get the domain back ...
    – David K.
    Commented Mar 5, 2013 at 13:02
  • I mean we needed a web presence and they came in, designed our card and stationery designed the website and help host it without giving us the domain control even though we were given www.ourcompanyname.com as our domain and email domain. But the charge of 40Pounds for every 5 email and 10Pounds for every 1GB needed for email is what is giving me issues and that is why I want to move
    – Laredo
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 7:47
  • if you do a whois lookup on your domain, who is showing up as the "Registrant". If its not you, its technically speaking not your domain ...
    – David K.
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 12:00
  • It shows My company as the registrant contact but not as administrative and technical contact
    – Laredo
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 15:48
  • then you're all good. the registrant is the "important" part in your case. @bybe is right, make sure your other hosting company has everything readily set and working and transfer your domain to your new host ...
    – David K.
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 9:14

5 Answers 5

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PRE-STEPS

  1. Ask for access to the back end of the hosting package via CPANEL/Plesk or any other control panel they use.
  2. Once you know what they use you need to find out how to migrate that data from their host to yours, this is fairly simple but the mail part can be a lot harder depending on what they use and I can't answer that until you know.

AFTER-STEPS

  1. Register new hosting
  2. Copy all files via FTP to Local computer (All zip it up first and then download zip)
  3. Upload the files via FTP from local computer to your new hosting package.
  4. Upload the SQL database to your new hosting package
  5. Point your Domain to the new hosting package (Wait 24 hours or until you know its updated)
  6. Start the Domain transfer but only if you have confirmed its pointing in the right hosting since this means no downtime as domains during transfer are still usable if the settings are right - this way you won't experience any down time.
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Back-up everything. Databases, files, important emails. Your domain will have to be unlocked for transfer. It does take a while, and your site will only be down for as long as it takes to transfer DNS as long as your site is mirrored on the new host before transfer. Good luck!

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My experience:

  1. Sign up with your new provider first. Once your account has been activated, you will receive the notification/activation email. Please read it one by one.
  2. Backup everything on your old provider ( files, email, database, etc)
  3. Upload it first to your new hosting provider and ask them to provide the temporary URL first. Or you can edit your local HOSTS file to temporary visit your site.
  4. If there is no problem and you can access your site, then please kindly point your domain to new name server.
  5. Done. Please wait 12-24, the DNS will resolve.

Good luck and hope my explanation is really helpfull

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  • Thanks mark... Its really helpful and I can equally do as you have said as we dont really update the website every week or so and its not an ecommerce website. But my issue is with the emails... How I can keep them IMAPed. More so, the change of domain registrant without downtime also comes in. Thanks so much
    – Laredo
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 7:50
  • If you change hosting provider, normally it will take 12-24 hours downtime as it wait the DNS to be resolved to new address.
    – Mark Shawn
    Commented Mar 7, 2013 at 2:36
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it is very expensive to the extent that my company pays 144Pounds for registration + hosting yearly

At abut 40p/day that's cheap for what you're getting - your "company" probably spends 5 times that on toilet paper, and how much new business does the loo bring you ?

I can only administer the website by logging into a portal (CMS) to make required changes, meaning I do not have control access over the registration and hosting

Then you need the web designer to assist you in moving it.

Depending on where you're moving it from (country/ip/host) in going to HG you could find it all gets slower, less reliable, and a drop in your SE rankings from moving.

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  • How do you mean slower and less reliable? Pertaining to the SE rankings, that can still generate over time
    – Laredo
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 15:50
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    1+ for "your "company" probably spends 5 times that on toilet paper"
    – Simon Hayter
    Commented Mar 11, 2013 at 2:10
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Please follow the steps mentioned by bybe and make sure that the domain name is not locked at your registrar end.

Also ensure that ID protection or privacy protection is disabled for the concerned domain name.

The transfer process will decline if the domain name is locked or if Privacy protection is enabled for the domain at the time of transfer.

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