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5  Transfer the site to another hoster

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A site and its domain can be transferred to another hoster.

Recommendation

Up to 48 hours may be needed to perform this procedure, during which email access will be disrupted. Accordingly, doing this over a weekend may cause the least disruption.

A site may become very popular and it may begin to slow down because the hosting plan's resource limits are being pushed. That means trying to find a better plan that may be available cheaper than from the site's current hoster. When that is done, this procedure can be used to shift the site and its domain to the new hoster.

It can be complex!

This is a complex technical process. For those who are challenged by such things, seek help from someone who is very familiar with email clients and cPanel to do or help with this if it feels too overwhelming.

Note that this procedure can only be used for a single addon domain because the primary account domain can only be transferred by moving everything, including all sites and email accounts, and that is best handled by the new hosting provider's transfer team, possibly by giving them temporary access (using a temporary password) to the account at your current provider.

Shifting a single domain means that all the emails for accounts using the domain need to be moved as well. Try to delete as many unnecessary emails as possible, and put the rest into folders, before then to minimise the time taken in the transfer. A drag-and-drop email client, like Outlook, will be necessary to move folders and individual emails between the old and new systems. A temporary email account not on the domain is needed as well. If using a separate domain for the hosting account, an email account created on that domain for just this purpose will be best as it will be empty.

This procedure is best done on a computer because it involves a lot of drag-and-dropping between three email accounts and a mouse is much more accurate and reliable for doing that when the target is text rather than a large area. Since the email transfer has to be done for every account on the domain, if using a single intermediate email account, do only one account at a time to avoid confusion.

One step involves pointing the registrar's DNS servers at the new hoster. It can take up to 48 hours for the DNS servers across the internet to update themselves, so emails can arrive at either server during the transition, depending where they originate from. The emails need to be copied from the old server to the temporary account beforehand, and copied from there to the new server afterward.

Steps

The roles to perform this procedure are:

  1. a.Site owner
  2. b.Master manager.
To transfer a site to another hoster:1Overall setup procedureSite owner

for the target site, with all the same email accounts and forwarders, but Smallsite Design will be loaded from a full archive file at step 5 here.

2Finalise all edits on the old site

by closing off any articles open for editing.

3Create a full archive on the old serverSite owner  Master manager

by performing:

3-1Open the Site page

by clicking the Site link in the Other section of the Work list page.

3-2Create a full archive

by clicking the Archive button in the first table row of the Archives section.

A row will be added to the table with the archive details.

3-3Download the archive file

by clicking the Download link in the archive file's row, then navigating to the desired location in the resulting dialog box.

4Explain the upcoming move

by performing:

4-1Create an articlewith:
  1. a.A headline like MOVING SITE TO NEW HOST. Uppercase is deliberate.
  2. b.An explanation of when it will happen and how long it will take.
  3. c.A warning to avoid sending emails during that time as they risk being lost.
4-2Add to subsite navigation bars

by using Create links to add a link to the article as the first in each subsite's Subsite navigation bar.

This has another purpose, and that is that because the article is not in the navigation bars in the archive, it is easy to tell when the new site is active because there will be no article.

5Load site files on the new serverSite owner  Master manager

by performing:

5-1Go to the domain's root folder

by performing Delete a site, ending at step 3.

5-2Initiate an upload

of the saved archive, by clicking the Upload link in the menu bar.

A new File Upload page for the folder is displayed:
Sample file upload page
5-3Copy the archive filefrom step 3, by either:
  1. a.Dragging-and-dropping the file from the computer's file manager program onto the Drop files here to start uploading area.
  2. b.Clicking the Select File button, then navigating to the file in the resulting Open dialog, then clicking its Open button.
The uploading process is shown until 100% is reached:
Sample completed file upload page

The progress bar will change from green to red when the file is shown in the folder.

5-4Close the page

by clicking on the X in its tab or window.

5-5Select the archive file

by clicking on it in the File Manager page.

5-6Initiate the extraction of files

by clicking the Extract button in the menu bar.

The Extract dialog is displayed:
Sample Extract dialog
5-7Extract the archive's files

by clicking the Extract Files button in the menu bar.

The Extract File popup is displayed, listing all files extracted:
Sample Extraction Results popup
5-8Close the popup

by clicking on the X in its caption bar.

The new site will not be able to modified until the DNS servers at the domain name registrar are pointed to the new site's servers at step 11.

6Delete the archive file

by performing:

6-1Select the archive file

by clicking on it in the File Manager page.

6-2Initiate the deletion

by clicking the Delete button in the menu bar.

The Trash dialog is displayed:
Sample Trash dialog for an archive file
6-3Delete the file

by checking the Skip the trash and permanently delete the files box, then clicking the Confirm button.

The results are:
  1. a.The dialog is removed.
  2. b.The file is deleted.
7Create an email account

on the new server for each email account on the old server .

8Create an email accountSite owner

as a temporary holding account for all emails, with a folder for each email account.

9Add account to email clientSite owner

for each email account and the temporary account.

10Transfer an email account to a temporary account folder

by performing:

10-1Show the email account on the old server

by opening it one instance of the email program.

10-2Show the temporary account

by opening it another instance of the email program.

10-3Create a folder

in the temporary holding account for the email account to be transferred, with a name matching the email account to be transferred.

10-4Copy a folder

by dragging and dropping the folder from current account to the temporary account's folder. The Crtl key may need to be held down during this process to ensure that the folder is copied and not moved.

10-5Repeat

for each of the remaining folders.

11Repeat

for each of the remaining accounts.

12Point to the hosting DNS serversSite owner

for the new server.

13Periodically check if the new site is live

by visiting the domain, and if the article created at step 4 does not show in the home page's subsite navigation bar, the new site is live.

14Transfer an account's email to the new site

by performing:

14-1Show the temporary account

by opening it another instance of the email program.

14-2Create an email account

on the new site.

14-3Show the new email account on the new server

by opening it one instance of the email program.

14-4Copy a folder

by dragging and dropping the folder from the temporary account's folder to the new account. The Crtl key may need to be held down during this process to ensure that the folder is copied and not moved.

14-5Repeat

for each of the remaining folders.

15Delete the temporary email account

as per the email client's process for that.

16Delete the old server's transferred email accounts

as per the cPanel process for that server.

Return to the procedure: Rent a domain name  Step: 1   Depth: 1

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