10 helpful tips to follow when switching Web Hosts

10 helpful tips to follow when switching Web Hosts

You've made your decision to move from your website from your current host to a new host. The following tips will help you make the transition easier and make you aware of some potential pitfalls.

1) Make sure that the new web hosting plan you choose offers storage capacities to meet all your current website storage requirements. If your site is 50 MB, you must ensure that your new hosting plan offers plenty of space, or more. If you are not sure how much space your site uses, ask your current host. You can usually find this information on your web hosting control panel.

2) How your current web host determine what your storage amount is it used? Find out what your current and new host includes in the amount of storage of your plan. Are your emails and log files counted towards your total storage, or just your web files?

3) What operating system does your current hosting plan use? Windows or Unix? Sometimes this can make no difference, in other cases, it may make the difference between a working website and a broken website. If your site is currently on a Windows server and your site uses ASP scripts, you will find it difficult to make things work well on a Unix server, as ASP is a programming language based on Windows. Know in advance if your current hosting plan is on a Unix or Windows server.

4) Does your site currently use FrontPage? Find out if your new host supports FrontPage. And make sure your new host supports the same version of FrontPage that you are currently using.

5) Find out if your new hosting plan offers the same amount of bandwidth that your current host offers. You do not want to be surprised by unexpected overage charges at the end of the month.

6) Does your new web hosting plan gives you the same amount of email accounts, auto responders and mail forwards you currently use?

7) Does your site uses a basket that your current hosting plan provides? Can you move the cart to your new host? If not, your new host have a suitable replacement basket?

8) If you use scripts on your site, make sure your new hosting plan supports all your scripts. Knowing in advance if you will need to make changes to your scripts to make them work on the new server.

9) Make sure to configure your existing email accounts on your new server before transferring your domain name to the new server. In MateMedia (www.matemediainc.com) we see this quite often overlooked.

10) Do you know how to upload your website files to the new server? If you do not, you'll need to know if your new host upload your files for you. Some hosts do without fees, some will do it for a fee, but other hosts will not do it because of liability issues.