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Fasthosts Customer Support

Transferring Hosting to Fasthosts

This guide will show you how to transfer hosting to Fasthosts from another provider

Customer Support | Transferring Hosting to Fasthosts

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Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 3

What is propagation? ............................................................................................................................... 3

What steps do I need to take? ................................................................................................................. 4

Step 1: Open a hosting account ............................................................................................................... 5

Step 2: Back up your website ................................................................................................................... 5 Website ................................................................................................................................. 5

Email ...................................................................................................................................... 5

Other Services ....................................................................................................................... 6

Step 3: Upload your website .................................................................................................................... 6 Set up your email................................................................................................................... 7

Set up any other services ...................................................................................................... 7

Test your new website .......................................................................................................... 8

Step 4: Redirect your domain ................................................................................................................... 9 Using a redirect script............................................................................................................ 9

Step 5: Remove the website from your old hosting account .................................................................. 11

Step 6: Set up your email software ........................................................................................................ 11

Step 7: Transfer your domain name ....................................................................................................... 11

Glossary of terms ................................................................................................................................... 12 Alias ..................................................................................................................................... 12

Domain / Domain Name ...................................................................................................... 12

DNS – Short for Domain Name System ............................................................................... 12

Email with web forwarding ................................................................................................. 12

Hosting................................................................................................................................. 13

IP address ............................................................................................................................ 13

Nameserver ......................................................................................................................... 13

Propagation ......................................................................................................................... 13

Registrant ............................................................................................................................ 13

Registrants Agent / Registrar .............................................................................................. 13

Registration period .............................................................................................................. 13

Registry ................................................................................................................................ 13

Customer Support | Transferring Hosting To Fasthosts

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Registry settings .................................................................................................................. 14

Transfer ............................................................................................................................... 14


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Introduction

It is useful to remember that your hosting and your domain name are two separate things. By

moving your domain name you will not affect where your website is hosted, and by moving

your website your domain name will remain unaffected. However, your domain name stores

information on the whereabouts of your website, so if you move your website to another

server, you will need to update your domain name with this new information.

When you make any changes to your domain name, it may take up to 72 hours for the changes

to be seen by all the computers on the internet. During this time customers may see your old

site, or your new site. This is a feature of the internet and cannot be controlled. However with

a little planning you can move your website with the minimum amount of disruption.

What is propagation?

Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not know the address of every website on the

internet, but knows where to look up this information. Once it has a website address it will

“remember” this information for some time before checking again to see if it is still at the

same address. If you move your website it can take up to 72 hours before all the ISP’s check

your address again and find out that you have moved your website. This period of time is

called propagation.

During propagation, you cannot be certain that visitors will visit your old or new website. This

can cause confusion, or the appearance that your website is down. However, there are a few

steps you can take to ensure that all of your visitors get the same website experience during

this period.

This guide will show you how to effortlessly transfer your hosting, whilst ensuring the least

possible disruption to your site during the propagation period.


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What steps do I need to take?

To ensure minimal disruption to your website when moving to a new hosting provider, it is

recommended you carry out this procedure in the following order:

Step 1

Open a hosting account with Fasthosts.

Step 2

Back up your website from your current hosting company, to your local computer. It is also

highly recommended that you backup any emails in your email software, and any other

services your site relies upon.

Step 3

Upload your website to your new Fasthosts hosting account, and set up any email addresses

and additional services you wish to use.

Step 4

Redirect your domain to your new hosting account.

Step 5

After the 72 hours propagation period, remove the website from your old hosting account.

Step 6

Set up your email software to connect to your new mailboxes, although it may not be able to

connect properly until after propagation.

Quick tip: Because transferring your website can take up to 72 hours, it is

advisable to carry this procedure out when your website is likely to have the least

number of visitors. For example, if you run a business website it is a good idea to

transfer the hosting on Friday evening, so the changes can take place over the

weekend ready for Monday morning.


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Step 7

If you wish to transfer the registration of your domain name, as well as the hosting, it is best to

wait until your website hosting transfer has completed.

Step 1: Open a hosting account

If you are reading this guide, the chances are you have already opened a new Fasthosts

account and have therefore completed this step.

Step 2: Back up your website

Website

Before you can upload your website, you will need a copy of it on your computer. If you don’t

already have a copy you can use FTP software to create a local copy of your website, or you

can contact the person who created your website for you and request a copy from them. To

make your own local copy you will need the FTP details of your current website and an FTP

client. Your current hosting company will be able to advise you how to make a copy of your

website

Email

It’s always worth making a note of each of the email addresses you are currently using, and is

good practice to make a back-up of your emails on a regular basis. You can usually make

backups via the email software on your computer, but should contact your current hosting

provider for more specific information

Quick tip: If you don’t have any FTP software to back up your website, why not

use the free copy of WISE-FTP available through your control panel?

Quick tip: If you use Outlook you can back up the contents of your mailboxes into

a Personal Folder File (.pst). Just select Import and Export from the File menu.


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Other Services

There may be other services such as databases that you currently have set up that you also

wish to transfer to your new hosting account. As with emails and your website, you should

make a note of these services and create local copies of them.

Step 3: Upload your website

Now you should start uploading your website to your Fasthosts hosting account.

The quickest way to upload your website is to use FTP software to upload the files from your

computer to your hosting server. If you do not have an FTP client of your own, Windows has

limited FTP capabilities built in.

As your domain name is not yet pointing towards your account, you should use the following

hostname / IP address to connect to your FTP space.

• ftp.livedns.co.uk

• 213.171.193.5

Just enter this IP address into your FTP software. If you don’t have any installed, open

Windows explorer and type ftp:// followed by the IP address above, into the Address bar.

If you can’t see the address bar, right-click on the toolbar and make sure Address Bar is

selected in the menu that pops up.

When prompted, you must then enter your FTP username (usually your domain name) and the

FTP password. Make sure the Log on anonymously check box is not selected.

ftp://ftp.livedns.co.uk/


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Once you are logged in you will be presented with three folders, htdocs, private, and logfiles.

Your website files need to go into the htdocs folder, and you can drag and drop files into this

folder, much like you would move files around using My Computer.

Set up your email

Next, set up your email accounts in your control panel, to avoid any confusion for your

customers it is worth setting up the same email addresses that you are currently using. There

is no need to set up your email software yet, this is done later in this guide.

Set up any other services

Now is a good time to add any additional services you want to use to your account. If you are

also moving a database across, you will need to import the backup you took from your

previous supplier.

Quick tip: If you are not prompted for the username and password, click the File

menu and choose Login As…

Note: If you are transferring an SQL database, don’t forget to update your

connection strings to point to the new login details. If you didn’t build your

website, your developer will be able to help you with this.


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Test your new website

Before you redirect your domain name, it is a good idea to test your site to make sure it works

on your new web server. You can do this with your test domain.

A test domain is a web link which points to your web server, and is independent from your

own domain name. Its main purpose is to allow you to visit your website without having to use

your domain name, making it useful for testing before and during propagation. Simply enter

the test domain URL into your web browser’s location bar, and you will be able to see if your

site is working properly and correct any issues or problems before you start directing your

visitors to the new server.

Your test domain link is available from your Fasthosts control panel.

Finding your test domain

Step 1

Login to your Fasthosts control panel

and select Website Hosting from the

Hosting tab.

Step 2

Locate your domain name

in the list and click on it.

Step 3

Click the Enable link in the Domains

box. Your test domain will be

generated and displayed here.


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Step 4: Redirect your domain

The easiest way of pointing your domain name towards your new hosting account is to change

your nameservers. Nameservers are like signposts on the internet that advise people where

your website and emails are hosted. Each domain name needs to have at least two

nameservers, so if one should fail the other one will keep directing traffic to your website.

To point your domain name towards your Fasthosts account, simply ask your current domain

registrar to change your domains nameservers to:

• ns1.livedns.co.uk


If your current registrar supports more than two nameservers you can also add the optional

third nameserver:


Once you have changed nameservers your domain name will start pointing towards your new

hosting server. While the change itself takes place immediately, it can take up to 72 hours for

the rest of the internet to notice the changes.

Using a redirect script

There may be some cases when you don’t want your visitors to see your old website anymore,

particularly if you have uploaded an updated or redesigned website to the new server. If this is

the case you can add some code to your old site which will redirect visitors to your test

domain, ensuring that no visitors will see your old site during propagation.

The redirect code uses HTML’s <meta> tag, and can be as simple as this:

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<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://test.domain.com" />

Quick tip: It is a good idea to change your nameservers before transferring your

domain name so you don’t have to wait for the transfer to complete before

pointing your domain at your new hosting account.


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However, it may be nice to let our visitors know that we are moving, so perhaps a simple

webpage may be better.

The above script will redirect visitors to your new hosting account straight away, but if we

include a message we may want a slight delay before we re-direct them. The 0 within the

above example shows the number of seconds to wait until they are re-directed so, for

instance, we can change this to 5 to give a 5 second delay.

It is also good practice to add a link to your new hosting account, so if visitors do not want to

wait for the re-direct they can click the link and direct themselves.

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2

3

<html> <head>

<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://yourtestdomainhere.com" />

</head></html>

However, it may be nice to let our visitors know that we are moving, so perhaps a simple

webpage may be better.

The above script will redirect visitors to your new hosting account straight away, but if we

include a message we may want a slight delay before we re-direct them. The 0 within the

above example shows the number of seconds to wait until they are re-directed so, for

instance, we can change this to 5 to give a 5 second delay.

It is also good practice to add a link to your new hosting account, so if visitors do not want to

wait for the re-direct they can click the link and direct themselves.

1

2

3

<html> <head>

<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://yourtestdomainhere.com" />

</head></html>

You must remember to exchange http://yourtest.domainhere.com for your own test domain

link.

Simply save the example code above into a text document called index.html, and upload it to

your old hosting server (replacing your existing home page).


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Step 5: Remove the website from your old

hosting account

It is a good idea to run your new hosting account and your old hosting account side-by-side for

the 72 hour propagation period. This ensures that no matter whether your visitor’s ISP has

seen the domain change or not, your visitors will all see your website. If you remove your

hosting account immediately, some of your visitors may see an error when they visit your site.

Step 6: Set up your email software

Now that your domain is pointing to your new hosting account, you can set up your email

software to connect to the mailboxes you have set up in your new hosting account.

You may find that you have some email waiting for you on the new email server, as some may

have filtered through during propagation. Because you have waited 72 hours no email will now

reach your previous provider, and you can delete any mail accounts from your email software

that connected to their email servers.

Please be aware that if you did not wait 72 hours since changing your domain’s nameservers,

you may receive errors indicating that your email software is unable to connect to the mail

server. These errors will disappear after several hours.

Step 7: Transfer your domain name

Your website hosting has successfully transferred, so now is a good time to transfer your

domain name to Fasthosts. This is entirely optional; a domain name does not need to be

registered with the same company that hosts its website. However, if you do transfer the

domain name you have the added benefit of managing both from the same place, making it

easier to keep track of billing and administration.


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Glossary of terms

While setting up your hosting or transferring your domain, you may come across a few terms

that you are unfamiliar with. This glossary describes some of these terms, with the aim of

making the process a little clearer.

Alias

Emails and website requests sent to the alias will be forwarded to the parent domain and any

changes made to the parent domain will be mirrored in the alias.

Domain / Domain Name

A domain name is essentially a signpost on the Internet. Almost every website you've ever

been to, and every email you've ever composed, has used a domain name in its address.

People register domain names in order to 'stake a claim' to a particular name -- whether for

business or personal reasons. Once a domain name is registered to a person or company, it is

that person's to use exclusively as long as they continue to pay the yearly renewal fee and

abide by the terms of use.

DNS – Short for Domain Name System

DNS is a method for resolving human friendly domain names to numerical IP addresses. DNS

uses a database to map a host name, such as www.yourdomain.co.uk, to the IP address of the

machine that hosts the site. DNS is built on the notion that some of the servers are

“authoritative” for certain domains. There is a distributed name server hierarchy, beginning

with the A Root Server and ending at the thousands of nameservers active on the internet.

This ensures that the naming and directing system will work the same from anywhere. For

example www.google.com will translate to 209.85.171.100.

Email with web forwarding

Space on a server where you can store email content, including email accounts and the space

to store emails. The website records (A Records) will point to another destination of your

choice. There is no FTP space associated with this type of account.


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Hosting

Space on a server specifically for website or email content.

IP address

Numerical address of the server on the internet.

Nameserver

Nameservers will resolve a human friendly address into a numerical IP address and will guide

browsing machines to the server hosting your website using DNS.

Propagation

Propagation is the time for all outdated DNS information to be cleared from all hosts and ISP’s

across the internet. This can take up to 72 hours for all content across the internet to be

updated.

Registrant

The person or company who registers a domain name. The domain name is legally registered

to the registrant.

Registrants Agent / Registrar

The agent of a registry that can make changes to the record of a domain name. The company

through whom you registered the domain name is the registrar.

Registration period

The length of time you are able to register a domain name for. The registration period varies

for different domain types. You are able to register top level domain names such as .com, .net

and .org for between 1 and 10 years.

Registry

The company responsible for the administration of the top-level domain database. Any

changes the registrar requests to the domain name are made by its registry.


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Registry settings

Any changes to your domain name (such as changing the DNS, or contact details for a domain)

will result in a change being made at the registry.

Transfer

Move the records of a domain name to another registration provider.

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