Moving Your Site

Start by uploading your site files to their new location. If you're using a hosted service, you may have to do this by using the IP address assigned to you by the hosting service, because your domain name (something like www. mywebsite.com) will still be pointing to your old server.

Next, you need to restore your site database to the new server's database server. Generally, this is something your new hosting company should be happy to help you within fact, some hosting companies will handle the entire database- and file-move process for you, which is a definite feature you should look for when considering a new hosting service. If you're running your site from your own server, simply use your database server's administration tools to back up the database from the old server and restore it to the new server. Consult the database administration tools' documentation for details (for example, if you're running the MySQL database software, you can check www.mysql.org for documentation on backing up and restoring databases).

You'll probably feel the urge to test your new site, but testing at this point can be difficult. After all, your domain name is still pointing to the old server, not the new one. In general, you can conduct a basic test simply by typing your new server's IP address (remember, if you're using a hosting service they'll have given you your address when you signed up; if you're hosting your own server then you should already know its IP address) into the address bar of your Web browser. That'll usually get you to your site, but because you're using an IP address and not your domain name, everything (like sending e-mail) might not work correctly.

A more comprehensive test would be to modify your computer's hosts file. On a Windows computer, it's located in \ Windows\ System32\ Drivers\ Etc. Open the file in Windows Notepad; it'll usually contain only one entry: 127.0.0.1 localhost. Simply add another entry, first listing your new server's IP address, then a space, and then your full domain name (www.mywebsite.com, for example). Save your changes, and you may need to restart your computer. On Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers, you can open a command line window and run ipconfig /flushdns instead of restarting. Now you should be able to type your domain name into a Web browser and get the new server, because the hosts file is providing the correct new IP address. When you're done testing, be sure to put the hosts file back the way you found it! Normally, the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) will provide the IP address, not the hosts file.