Domain Setup - tranfer from old host to jodo

D

Dustin D

Guppy
Sorry if this has been asked before, I've been searching these threads over the last month for this answer.

I've converted my trial to the value plan today. I already own my domain name and it's currently hosted with another company. I have online access at the domain registration and know that I need to sign on and change the name server to point to Jodohosts name servers.

I think I will also want to delete my 3rd level domain name that I setup to use for my test since I would want to use my own domain name, is that correct?

What's the best way to do a smooth transition knowing that it will take 24 hours or whatever before the new name servers are pointing my domain to jodo (I think I said that right)?

My site contains a message board that is constantly updated. Should I make a final copy from my old site to the new jodo site and then do a redirect to my 3rd level domain name (until my original domain get's propogated) and not allow changes on the old site?
Or do I use the domain alias feature to accomplish this?

I've never transfered hosts before and am a little confused about what would be the least disruptive transfer process. Any help would be appreciated.
 
The 24 hour period isn't always necessary, depending on the level of control you have over your current nameservers.
If you have full control, you can lower the TTL for the appropriate DNS entries to something like 300 seconds instead of the standard 86400 (1 day), 1 day in advance. This will result in more traffic on your old host's DNS, but it's only for a day.

The moving of the site depends a little on the type of content. If the files are fairly static, make sure you upload all the files necessary before syncing the database. In order to do that you will probably want to prevent updates to it for a while. When you're done moving the database, test the site using the assigned stopgap domain. If things are working, log back in to the old nameserver and change the relevant entries to point to the IP address assigned to your website at Jodohost. Your old DNS will start sending people to your new website.

Then change the nameservers for the domain to the Jodohost servers. This might take several days to propagate properly, but that won't matter because the old DNS is already sending people to the new website within 5 minutes after changing the DNS entries.

If you don't have that level of control over your nameservers, it will be a bit harder. It's usually possible to have your site at the old host use the database at Jodohost, so both sites are essentially the same but displayed from a different webserver. If there are regular file updates as well as database updates that won't work too well though. In that case you will need to redirect people to your stopgap domain or something similar that looks less crude (w3.transferred-domain.com for example if you can add custom DNS records at your old host).

It's very hard to make a standard plan for transferring domains that's optimal. If you want to decrease the downtime, you will need to be inventive :)
 
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