Moving host, how hard will it be?

[jamescheema]

Hi there after realising i'm paying way too much for hosting i'v decided its time for a change. What exactly does the process of switching involve. There are obviously the ftp details in the network options but as far as transferring files goes what do i do? Hope everyone is well by the way

James

[Donna Kempster]

http://community.actinic.com/showthr...t=27733&page=2

I think the gist of this thread tells that it is not too difficult to move host or get a good deal. You need to concentrate on the middle bit from page 2 onwards.

[leehack]

It's a simple process, your domain needs to be told where to go and as you say your actinic needs to be updated to show the new settings provided.

Most people sign up to a company and then investigate whether they can do actinic or are any good. Dont do this. Investigate who to use, confirm someone uses them in the forum (search facility) and then select them.

Should be plain sailing.

[RuralWeb]

I would reccomend 123-reg.co.uk if you have a smallish site <200MB at £19pa or for a bigger site webfusion with a starter package giving1GB of disk space and 15GB of bandwidth per month at £70pa .

If you want the network settings for either of these then I will post them.

[Jane]

I use www.scl.co.uk they host lots of Actinic shops and offer great support.

[RuralWeb]

You will always get a better deal if you deal direct with a major hosting company rather than going through a reseller.

If you want another option you can become a reseller yourself, it may work out cheaper!. eg you can become a reseller with webfusion for about £26 per month. For this you will get unlimited webspace and bandwidth plus if you have several websites you will be able to host them all for the same price - the only extra will be £25pa domain mapping but if you are paying for several sites then the maths are easy to do.

[jamescheema]

Malcolm thats exactly what i'v done! Ends up purchasing a resller account with 10x the original bandwidth/storage of the previous service for cheaper! I'm using www.fastnext.com, not sure if anyones got any experience with it. I think for NOW i'm going to change the nameservers over, upload everything and give it a try before i cancel my other account. One question, when transferring files is it only the stuff in the catalog directory that needs to be moved, will actinic recognize that the CGI scripts etc need to be installed fresh and upload them for me? Many thanks

[leehack]

Do a "site refresh" and not an update, you will get all you need then.

You may want to rethink having a US hosted service, much better if they are UK based on all accounts, except cost.

[jamescheema]

Excellent cheers lee i'll try that. How long do nameservers usually take to transfer, in the past its been virtually instantly (5-10) mins but its taking hours now.

[leehack]

I'd stop the transfer, hosting through a US hoster would be a serious no-no for me personally. As for time, it can be anything from 15 minutes to 2 days, depends on your hosts.

[pinbrook]

in the past its been virtually instantly (5-10) mins but its taking hours now.

it depends on how long it takes your ISP to refresh their DNS tables

[RuralWeb]

Malcom thats exactly what i'v done! Ends up purchasing a resller account with 10x the original bandwidth/storage of the previous service for cheaper!

See its pretty easy and I would encourage everyone to examine what they are paying for hosting.

[RuralWeb]

US hosted service

BIG no in my books - it should be a UK based host if you are using a .co.uk

[RuralWeb]

Buying a reseller package from the US is cheap as chips and it is another thing that UK resellers do to up the profits. You buy from them thinking you are buying UK hosting but in reality your site is hosted in the US.

At the end of last year there was a feature on Working Lunch about two 18 year olds who had set up a profitable business as resellers - Working Lunch featured it as an example of young people setting up a business. As the feature progressed the two lads explained that they were buying cheap hosting from a big server in Texas and selling it on in the Uk at a huge profit. They then gave their website details and sure enough the were selling it as UK hosting - if I had been one of thier customers I would have gone through the roof.

So inadition to looking for a good deal make sure that the server is located in the UK for best effect if you are targeting the UK market. Its no good asking the reseller because they will of course say yes. Look at thier clients and check the location of the server using a tool like http://www.webconfs.com/website-to-country.php you can also test your own website to see wher it is hosted - you may get a surprise!

[jamescheema]

But is there a huge difference in performance? I know the customer service and those elements arn't the same but as long as i'm getting the performance i think its great. Perhaps server maintenance/bandwidth is much cheaper in the US and this explains the price difference.