Written By Trevor A. Winchell Moving your website from your current host to another hosting provider could be easy or difficult depending on the type of your website. Although it can be a daunting task, you may have to do it because of several reasons. Maybe you need some features which are not provided by your current hosting provider. Or maybe you need a company with a quality web site hosting service capable of helping you when something goes wrong. Whatever the reasons, the process of moving hosts and transferring files should be accomplished smoothly. This article contains some important steps you can take to move your website to another hosting provider.
Here they are:
- Old Account Don't close your old hosting account so that your frequent visitors can still access your website. Besides, you can still receive incoming emails until the moving process completely finished.
- Backup your files Make sure you have backed up all of your files (and directories) correctly. Note that there are two types of transfer mode, ASCII and binary. Use the correct transfer mode when downloading the files to your hard drive. Normally, you will have to choose ASCII mode for transfering text files and binary mode for transfering image files. If you use WS-FTP, you can select the "Auto" mode so that the software will do it for your automatically.
- Keep the important information Write down the important information about your old hosting account (e.g. billing history) in case you need it as reference in the future.
- Open an account in the new hosting provider After making payment, normally they will send an email to you that contains your login information (username and password), your temporary URL and their DNS information. Just keep it.
- Login to your new Control Panel Using your username and password, login to the control panel (e.g. CPanel). Create the email accounts you have already had in the old hosting provider.
- Uploading Upload the files to the root directory (e.g. public_html) of the new hosting server. Once again, use a FTP software such as WS-FTP to do it. Before you do it, don't forget to setup the software with your new host name (e.g. ftp.yourdomain.com), username and password. Don't forget also to transfer the files correctly (ASCII/binary).
- Testing Through web browser, visit your website with the temporary URL. Notice whether all files have been uploaded properly and all links work.
- Transfer Domain Ask the old hosting provider to change the DNS of your domain name. Tell them the DNS information of your new hosting provider. If everything is OK, you will be able to access your website with your own domain name in a few days. Note that if the old hosting provider gives you a username and a password to login to the domain manager of a domain registrar (e.g. enom), you need to go to the domain manager in order to setup the new DNS addresses.
- Close the old hosting account After the move is done and everything works properly, contact the old hosting provider to close your account.
If your website requires a database support and/or use a server-side script, there are some additional tasks you may have to do.
- Make sure the new hosting server supports your script. When I moved my website to a new hosting provider, I asked them first using their chatting facility whether their server supported a script I intended to use before using their service. By asking them like that you will also find out the response time they take to answer your questions.
- You may have to backup your databases. With CPanel, you can do it using the "Backup and Restore" facility. You can also use the import/export facility in PhpMyAdmin to back them up. In order to avoid incompatibility problem, use both methods. Talking about database, note that a web hosting provider with shared hosting pan usually adds the name of a database with an extra prefix. If both of your old and new hosting providers apply the rule, you can try to ask the new provider to give you the same username as the old one.
- Don't forget to modify the configuration file(s). You may have to change the information about your database or the absolute path.
If you meet any troubles, don't panic. Check everything from the configuration files to the .htaccess file . If needed, contact the support staffs to help you. Some web hosting providers even offer script installation for their new customers.
By moving from one host to another quickly and efficiently, people can still find your website without realizing what you are doing. Although you may meet some difficulties, moving from your current host to a new one that provides better features and supports is something you will never regret.
For great web hosting services and awesome prices please visit my hosting company site for more details at http://www.gooyah-host.com
What Is The Difference Between Windows And Unix Web Hosting?
Written By Trevor A. Winchell Windows and UNIX are in fact two different systems and of course we are referring to computer systems. A web host uses computers, (we shall refer to them as servers, just computers, but sometimes larger) to host websites, and all computers need a operating system, so Windows and UNIX are the operating system.
The Windows used is normally Windows NT or 2000 and of course as you know Microsoft charges for it's software, while UNIX is an open source operating system, this means that the original creators of the system have given up the rights and anyone can use it, change, improve or do anything they want with, free of charge.
From this we already have to main differences, Window hosts are more expensive and UNIX is more reliable, because it as been improved by thousands of anonymous people. Most probably you are reading this in front of your computer which most probably is operates on a Windows XP, have you noticed that it sometimes, it freezes, and the only solution is to restart it? UNIX is much more stable, robust, time-tested, flexible platform for a web server.
But Windows servers have also it's positive sides, they are compatible with Microsoft applications, and fully support Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Access and MS SQL, they also offer advance-programming environments and features such as Active Server Pages (ASP), the ASP.NET framework, Visual Basic Scripts, MS Index Server, Macromedia's and Cold Fusion.
Windows operating system require little or no experience in web development to get advanced features working very quickly because of better graphical user interface (GUI) Software such as Microsoft's FrontPage is specially developed for the webmaster to decrease the website development time and efforts.
Lets go back again to UNIX, they support FrontPage, Flash, Shockwave, Real Audio/Video, Cgi Scripts, Perl, PHP, SSH (Secure Telnet), MySQL, Web-Based Control System, Anonymous FTP, Web Site Graphical Statistics, Web-Based Email System, Miva/XML, Cold Fusion Perl, JAVA, PHP, C, C++, Miva, Shell Access and other wide verity of feature like Telnet and SSH that provides lots of flexibility and freedom in managing file and directories, but some of this require advance knowledge of Unix commands in order for you to customize the scripts to match your website needs. Because of the nature of UNIX, (open source) and the people who love it, there is on the WWW freely available software and scripts, again bringing the cost down.
Concluding which one is the best, it really depends what you need, if you need high uptime, security and not so expensive then go with UNIX, if you need to run Windows applications like, MS Access or the MS SQL SERVER then Windows is your choice.
For great web hosting services and awesome prices please visit my hosting company site for more details at http://www.gooyah-host.com
What exactly is a web host? This question is typical of someone who is new to or just getting into the process of building a website. Put simply, a web host is basically a neighborhood of web sites stored on a server. Period.
To elaborate a little more, let me go into more detail. These servers are actually owned by the web hosting companies we seek out for housing our websites. Each website has it's own address (referred to as URL) to help individuals like you and I arrive at the destination to find what we need.
Whether it be products, information, music, etc there is no limit to what can be found online but that's an entirely different story.
When you host a website with someone it can be stored anywhere. For instance, a website that was built by someone in Europe could have the site hosted on a server in Miami, FL. That's what's so amazing about the internet because it offers so much flexibility as to where you want to your website stored. You are not limited to your home country.
You can look at website hosting the same way as paying rent for an apartment. Essentially, you are renting out space to keep your website in order for people to view it. Just like apartments there are rules to abide by. This could be restrictions as to the types of programs you run on the servers. Certain programs use up a considerable amount of resources causing the servers to get bogged down.
If the host provider company traces it back to you, they'll ask you to remove it and never use it again. What happens is the resources being used up can cause problems with other websites stored on the servers. This can lead to sites being unavailable or people getting that "website is busy" message when trying to visit the url.
If this happens too much people may just decide to move their website to another host provider. Web hosts want to avoid this inconvenience as much as possible. With today's technology many of the servers are very stable and usually don't run into this problem like they did years ago.
Another thing to be aware of is the type of website you plan to publish. By this I'm referring to the type of material you'll be displaying on it. If your site happens to include things of a pornographic nature, you may just find your website evicted from their servers. Please be sure to read the host provider's terms of use very carefully before uploading web sites of that nature to the servers.
If you are new to website hosting, it can be overwhelming as to whether or not you are getting the right plan or package deal. Don't worry because a lot of the features you need come with the cheapest plan offered. The other features are more suited to individuals that are more advanced when it comes to website building.
As your experience grows and you become more proficient at building and running a website, you can always upgrade to another package when needed.
For great web hosting services and awesome prices please visit my hosting company site for more details at http://www.gooyah-host.com
Written By Trevor A. Winchell When choosing a web hosting provider, there are a number of factors to consider. One very important factor is the control panel that comes with the web hosting package. You might ask: Why should the control panel be important? Well, the control panel is important because it determines how accessible the features of the server are to you so as to maximize the benefits to your web site.
Since a number of web-hosts offer hosting on Linux, this article shall give a run down of the types of Linux control panels that are common on the market. We shall compare cPanel, Ensim and Plesk with the aim of helping a user decide on how to choose between the different control panels.
The first and most common control panel is actually called cPanel (from the word control panel). It is the most common type and actually in my opinion it offers the most functionality and user friendliness. Some of the features that make it stand out are the themes which make the control panel very accessible and user friendly. The current version of cPanel also offers quite a number of useful features e.g. a variety of web statistic programs. cPanel also allows multiple file uploads which Ensim does not allow. It also allows automatic installation of other 3rd party programs and scripts via its Fantastico section.
The second type of control panel is Ensim. This control panel has the advantage of being secure since the updates are very strictly controlled from the parent company as compared to the automatic updates of cPanel. Ensim Pro's control panel offers four powerful roles, each with their own roles & responsibilities. Service Provider Administrator manages servers, resellers and sites, Reseller Administrator creates and manages sites on a portion of the server, Site Administrator manages users and site configuration and lastly End User Administrator manages email and supports site as permissions allow. Ensim Pro works for both Windows and Linux servers efficiently.
The third type of control panel is Plesk. This control panel has a very beautiful interface. It has a favorites interface for the most recent tasks. Like cPanel, it also has an Updater to aid in maintaining and updating the control panel software. It also allows easy installation of 3rd party software. In terms of features, it easily competes with cPanel. Like Ensim, it also has four user levels: Administrator, Client, Domain Owner and Mail User. Its downside is that not very many servers have it pre-installed as compared to cPanel or Ensim.
Other variants of control panels exist, but the above 3 are the most common. In conclusion, all the 3 control panels have strengths and weaknesses, and the primary factors in deciding which ones to settle for would be price difference and/or availability on the web host's servers.
Trevor Winchell, has been offering web hosting services since 2001. Visit his advanced web hosting web site at http://www.gooyah-host.com
