How to move a website - Part 1

• Jul. 24, 2003

In the past, we have presented articles explaining such things as server issues affecting website rankings.  Sometimes, you can inadvertently affect your search engine rankings by simply switching your website hosting, or moving your website to another IP address.  There are many instances when you may wish to move a website.  In some cases you can find a less expensive and/or more reliable hosting provider.  In other cases it may be advantageous to host multiple sites on multiple IP addresses rather than a single IP.  In yet other cases, a move may be required for geographical reasons.

Whatever the case may be, there are some pointers that you need to consider when switching your site.  Many of the issues addressed in this document will affect how you handle the move and many can affect your search engine rankings.

This article is broken up into 2 parts.  Part one addresses moving a site to a new IP but maintaining the hosting platform (i.e. moving from a windows based server to another windows based server), while part two goes into more detail about moving a site to a new IP and changing platforms.

Topic 1: switching IP addresses

We have had many clients move their site from one physical IP address to another.  Generally we have the same recommendations for all clients considering such a switch.

Step 1 - Communication

The first thing to do, above all else, is to talk to your search engine marketing consultant.  Explain to them that you are considering moving your site, giving them all the details you can (i.e. Current hosting platform, current IP address, DNS servers, new hosting information and so on) so that they can help you make an informed decision on the move.  Sometimes a new hosting package can look too good to be true.  In these cases it's best to talk to your consultant about what you could be getting into, as the switch could do more harm than good.

Once they have the details they can give you the best recommendation for your site.  For example, if you are currently hosted on a UNIX server and find a more reliable hosting service some where else, your consultant may advise you not to move your site because the more reliable service is Windows based and can't support your PHP based site.

Step 2 - Planning

So, you've talked to your consultant and determined that a move will be advantageous in the long run.  Now you have to plan your move.  Now you may be thinking "no problem, I'll just copy my site from my current hosting to the new hosting and it's done."   Well it's not quite that easy.

To help you understand why, let me change subjects slightly and explain how the internet works.

In order to find any computer on the internet, you need to know their IP address.  This is like a phone number, but for computers.  The architects of the internet realized early on that it would be nearly impossible to remember every IP address of all your favorite sites, so they determined it would be easier to resolve the IP addresses to a name, or domain name.  This domain name resolution is handled ultimately by 13 root DNS servers, who replicate the information down to thousands of other servers around the world.  This process of replicating information can take some time - in rare cases up to two weeks.

The IP address of a website is analogous to your phone number.  By moving your site you are in effect disconnecting your phone and getting a new phone number but not telling your friends and family what the new number is.  They have to wait until the phone directory (or DNS servers in the case of IP) is updated before they can call you again.

Switching IP addresses is much the same.  If you move your site to the new IP and turn off the old site, you risk having people or search engines not find you because the DNS servers may not know where your site is yet.

Step 3 - Complete the move

So how do you fix this?  Well with your telephone, you would keep the old number and put call forwarding on it to the new number.  You can do something similar with a site move.  You can either redirect users to the new site, or our recommendation is to leave both sites active for a couple weeks.

This allows search engines and DNS servers to update their records to reflect the new IP address, allowing the world to find the new site.  You will want to double check with your new hosting provider to ensure they update their local resource records to reflect your new site.  You may also want to ensure that the old hosting provider cleans up his DNS database and removes your entries.  Usually the hosting services will look after this for you, but if not, the duplicate DNS records can cause confusion for search engine spiders and users.

So, in summary, if you are thinking about performing a simple site move, we recommend that you communicate your ideas with your marketing consultant, plan ahead and keep both sites running for at least two weeks to ensure propagation of the new IP address throughout the internet.

In part 2 of this article, we go into more detail on moving IP's and platforms.