Change of Address - How to Move Your Web Site

If you host your Web site at a hosting company, there's a chance that you may need to move companies for economic or a greater range of services and facilities you'll want to move it somewhere else.

Maybe you're hosting company isn't giving you the uptime they promised. Or perhaps you've just outgrown what your hosting company can provide and you need to move to a dedicated server.

Don't worry. Moving your Web site is easier than you think, and it doesn't involve changing your domain name or site downtime if you do it correctly.

The process of moving your Web site is straightforward; but there are several key steps you need to be familiar with before you start.

1. Find a New Home

Logically enough, the first step is to find a new hosting company. Research your alternatives carefully to make sure you're getting the services you need. When you create your account with this company, tell them that you'll be transferring an existing Web site. They'll need that information to set up your account correctly.

Moving your Web site means changing its IP address. Since IP addresses are issued in blocks to Web hosting companies, moving to a new company means getting a new address - but that doesn't mean changing your top level domain name.

That's important, because even though we humans don't pay much attention to it, the IP address is what the underlying technology of the Internet uses to find your site. The routers and DNS servers that navigate your browser through cyberspace pay attention to IP addresses.

While you may know your site as "www.mydomain.com," DNS servers across the Internet tie that name to a specific IP address, which might be something like 196.18.01.123. The routers that act as the Internet's roadmap then direct traffic to that address.

That matters, because most of the work required to move your Web site involves telling DNS servers across the Internet that you've changed your address.

Once your new hosting company activates your account, you can start uploading your Web pages to your new site.

You can look at these pages at their new home, but initially you'll have to use your new IP address. If you just type in your domain name, your browser will be directed to your old site.

2. Start the Domain Transfer

Once you're satisfied that everything is working well at your new home, it's time start transfer your domain to your new IP address.

Tell your new hosting company that you're ready to begin the transfer process. They will then notify the official registrar for your site, which may be one of several other domain registration companies.

3. Confirm the Transfer

Within a day of your request, you'll get an email message from the domain registrar asking you to confirm that, yes indeed, you really do want to transfer your domain.

This message is a security mechanism designed to keep someone from hijacking your domain with a false transfer request (yes, this does happen!).

You must reply to this message or your domain won't be moved!

4. Notify Your Old Hosting Company

After you the confirmation message, you should send a message to your old hosting company telling them that you're transferring your domain to a new location. Their system administrator needs to know that to smooth the domain transfer process.

This doesn't mean that you're canceling your account with them immediately. In fact, we strongly recommend that you keep your account with the old hosting company alive for just one more month. Even if you're angry and frustrated with them, stay a

few more weeks. Don't overlook this very important step; it can save you trouble down the road.

5. Wait Patiently

Once you confirm the domain transfer request, DNS servers around the world will start mapping www.mysite.com to your new IP address, and traffic will begin moving from the old site to the new site.

However, for some period of time after the transfer starts, your Web site will get hits at both its new and old locations. For the first 48 hours most of the traffic will go to your old site. After that traffic will quickly shift to your new site, though the old site will still get some traffic for the next week. In fact, a tiny amount of traffic will still go to your old site for as long as a month.

That's why you don't want to cancel your account with your old company right away. Doing so means that some DNS servers will direct your traffic into a black hole. To these unlucky visitors it will look like your site is down.

To understand why this happens, you may need a little background on how the DNS system really works.

The DNS, or Domain Name System, is one of the most elegant and under appreciated parts of the Internet. It functions smoothly enough that you rarely encounter problems.

Think of it like the rumour mill at a large corporation. Only at this company, all the participants are all scrupulously honest and admit that their information may be old and inaccurate.

When you surf the Internet, your browser interacts with a DNS server run by your local ISP. That DNS server checks its records to see that www.mydomain.com has the IP address 196.18.01.123. But your server's records include an expiration date, which is typically set to 48 hours. After that time the DNS server says, "Gee, I don't know where to find mydonain.com. Give me a second and I'll ask around."

Your DNS server then asks other DNS servers above it in the hierarchy whether they know where mysite.com is located. If those servers aren't sure because their records have also expired, they in turn ask their superiors. That process may continue all the way until someone asks the root-level DNS servers, the very top of the DNS hierarchy.

Now here's a subtle but important point. The root-level DNS servers don't maintain one big catalogue of all the domain names and IP addresses on the Internet - they would quickly be swamped with requests. Instead, they maintain a directory telling them who knows for sure what IP address is tied to a given domain name.

In other words, the root level DNS servers don't say with authority that mysite.com resides at your new IP address. Instead they say, "I don't know where mysite.com lives, but I can tell you who knows for sure." And they then direct other DNS servers to what's know as the authoritative DNS server for mydomain.com, which happens to be the DNS server for your new hosting company. That server replies with your new address, and all the servers involved in the rumour mill finally get things straight.

This process sounds complicated, but it takes only a few seconds. Since fresh information spreads quickly through the rumour mill, DNS servers rarely have to query all the way to the root-level servers to get accurate information.

But there are two ways this process can go wrong. First, if you forget to tell your old hosting company that you're moving your Web site, they won't change their DNS server. That's important, because their DNS server will also claim to be the authority on where your site is located, and it may continue giving out your old IP address for a long time!

Fortunately, most DNS servers will get the word from the root-level servers that this guy is no longer the authority. But some DNS servers may not and so continue sending people to your old site indefinitely. Yikes!

Fortunately, once you cancel your account, your old hosting company will delete you from its DNS server, and this problem will go away. But sending a message to your old company's system administrator will make this happen before you cancel your account.

So why not be safe and cancel your old account right away? Because there's something else that could go wrong: not all DNS server around the world use the same expiration time. While the majority of DNS servers expire their records after 48 hours, the server's administrator sets this expiration period. And some of these guys set their expiration times to a week or more.

So if you take down your Web site right way, some portion of your traffic will again be sent into a black hole. How much? Probably 99% of your traffic will be sent to the new site with a week of the transfer.

Does this still sound frightening? You don't need to be scared, so long as you follow a simple rule of thumb: wait a week before taking down your old site if you can accept a small amount of lost traffic; wait a month if you want to be sure no one gets burned.

And if you want to be absolutely, totally sure no one gets burned, keep an eye on the log files at your old Web site. Once you see traffic at that site drop to a few hits a day, you can safely pull the plug.

What is DNS caching?

All Internet hosts, including your computer when it is connected to the Internet, use a DNS Server. Every time you go to a website, you need to look up the site's IP address using the domain name of the website. Your request for this lookup is eventually passed to a DNS Server somewhere.

But your request is one of thousands, even millions of requests being made at any one time across the Internet. The DNS lookup process requires that if your local DNS Server is not Authoritative for the domain that contains the domain name you are trying to reach, it should ask other Servers to get an answer. Your local Server could get quite busy performing these lookup requests, and this could slow down its performance if it is Authoritative for a domain name.

To combat this the answers that a DNS Server gets from another DNS Server can be added to their own internal Database and retained for a period of time equal to the time to live (ttl) value set on the record stored on the Authoritative DNS Server.

Storing these responses is called Caching, and allows a DNS Server to respond more quickly to multiple queries for the same domain or host. If you are on a website, and want to retrieve the next page on the site, the local DNS Server does not have to look up the host again, provided the time to live (ttl) value has not expired and caused the local DNS Server to delete the information. This is why it takes so long to contact a website at first, but subsequent requests for pages on the same site are somewhat faster.

Caching DNS Servers are configured for recursive lookup as well. This creates a Server that will respond to lookup requests by delivering answers from its cache, or looking them up on other Servers. It is the job of a Caching DNS Server to handle general lookups of Internet domains. A Caching DNS Server reduces the load placed on an Authoritative DNS Server by handling the requests that don not pertain to the local domain.

Almost all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) operate some kind of Caching DNS Server.

Unfortunately DNS Caching is a double-edged sword. It speeds up resolution by storing recent answers, and short-circuiting the normal resolution process. However there is a down side. Because DNS Servers cache answers, and don't delete these answers until the time to live (ttl) expires, it can take hours or days for the entire Internet to recognize changes to DNS information for your domain name.

How often do ISP's update their DNS Caches?

Every ISP (Internet service provider) and web hosting company operates a Domain Name Service. The DNS server translates the Domain Name into a numerical value that the computers on the Internet recognize. The DNS server saves or caches previous translations so that later requests can be handled much more quickly (the name server reads the stored information and does not have to perform a translation/search each time the name is resolved).

The cache of every DNS server is deleted periodically. The length of time between purges is different for everyone though most hosts/ISPs clear DNS cache every 7 to 10 days (some more frequently some less frequently). This means that if your domain is moved or transferred it may take up to 10 days for everyone on the Internet to see the changes. We have no control over how ISP's cache DNS information

What is the difference between a company offering a Web Hosting service and a company offering Internet Access ?

They could be the same as some companies provide either service only or some companies offer both, but for the ease of understanding in practical terms there are "two sides to the story"

The one side is your access to the internet from your home or office, this is done via a dialup connection using a modem and telephone line (very slow speed with a max of 56kps), Broadband connections dsl (digital subscriber line) commonly referred to as ADSL also using a modem and a phone line, wireless options such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, 3G service via the GSM cell phone networks, iBurst, Sentech and similar networks Broadband offers speeds from 512kps to 8mps.

This how you would access the internet with your access account from your ISP you would get a mailbox with an address yourname@yourispco.com a password to allow you access and you would them be able to surf the internet, transfer files via ftp, send your email etc. For this you require a computer with the relevant internet service account.

The other side of the story is should you want to host a website you would need to register a domain and then host your domain with a web hosting service provider. Your website is then hosted on their computer servers in a data centre, and linked at high speeds to the internet.

Your website is then visible 24 hours 7 days a week to the whole world. All domain will include at least one (if not more) email address yourname@yourdomain.com this means you will have a permanent (as long as the annual domain fees are paid) email address as well as a good business image as wherever you move your domain to your address stays the same.

Some business people make the mistake of using their email address belonging to the internet access company, its much easier for a customer to remember an address at a domain especially if you have been able to register the name of your company.

To help speed up Web browsing, Windows XP comes with a local cache containing any DNS addresses that have been looked up recently. Once an URL has been resolved by an Internet name server into a numerical IP, the information is stored locally.

Anytime your browser requests an URL, Windows XP first looks in the local cache to see if it is there before querying the external name server used by your ISP. If it finds the resolved URL locally it uses that IP. This is supposed to save time and cut down on Web traffic.

Problems

The default time period for keeping an address in the cache is 24 hours. Thus, a problem can arise if the IP for an URL changes before the 24 hour period is up. In this case an error message will result if you try to connect to the URL. It is not a frequent occurrence but is not unknown.

Another more common problem can arise from URLs that are temporarily busy or from congested Internet traffic. If a negative response is received from an attempt to connect, that result is also kept in the local cache. The default time period for retaining a negative response is five minutes.

In other words, once a negative response is received you will not be able to connect to the site for at least five more minutes. Since temporary congestion lasting a few seconds is often the cause of a momentary inability to connect to a site, this delay of five minutes can be a nuisance.

How to Clear the DNS Resolver Cache

Fortunately, it is possible to clear out the local DNS cache in order to get around these types of problems. Windows XP comes with a useful command-line utility, ipconfig, which has a switch, flushdns, for removing the entries in the cache.

Open a command prompt and enter "ipconfig /flushdns" (without quotes) and the cache will emptied. Personally, I find that it sometimes speeds up Internet browsing to do this flush even when there are no obvious error messages. If you are curious about the contents of the DNS cache, they can also be seen by using ipconfig. In this case open a command prompt and enter "ipconfig /displaydns".

If you are experiencing trouble connecting to a particular Web site, it may be useful to see if its URL is in the cache and what IP is being used.

By Sean Carton
October 5, 2005
www.publish.com/article2/0,1895,1867428,00.asp

Opinion: Sean Carton looks back, not quite lovingly, at portals, splash pages and other Web duds.

So to help you save money, development time, and client relations, today we present the list of the Top 10 Web Development Fads of the Past as a public service and a reminder about what happens when fads get the best of us. Try not to cringe and remember to forgive yourself if you participated in any of these.

1. Portals: One of the most irritating trends of the late '90s was the move to make every site a "portal." From corporate sites to publishers to personal home pages, this fad took the Web by storm. News tickers, stock quotes, personalization, forced registration, Web search boxes, link lists…no content was too much (or too irrelevant) in this "more is more" trend. The base of the idea was good-provide content to make your site "sticky" and drive repeat visitors-but the executions were often unusable and the sheer number of "portals" made competition fierce. Besides, why do you need to know the weather when all you need is the link to customer service.
   
   
2. Splash Pages: Ugh. Gag. Barf. Everyone hated these things (so expertly parodied at the famous "Skip Intro" site), yet for some reason there was a period of time when having a fancy Flash intro page to your site was all the rage. Unfortunately "rage" was also the reaction many users had when they had to sit through interminable rasterbatory gimmicks to get to the content they were looking for. Good riddance.
   
   
3. "Community": Back in 1997, McKinsey's John Hagel wrote a book called Net Gain which contained the famous quote that "community precedes commerce." Realizing that loyal customers constituted a "community" wasn't a bad idea, but the execution of what many sites took away from the quote definitely was. All of a sudden sites started sprouting "community" sections in an effort to get users to chat, hang out, and generally become part of the "community." Unfortunately not many did. Who wants to define their social group by the kind of soap they use?
   
   
4. Page counters: Who cares how many visitors your site has? Not that these things have gone away, but there was a time when no self-respecting site seemed complete without some annoying odometer-looking GIF announcing how many people had beat you to the site.
   
   
5. Homepages: There was a time when no cybercitizen could hold their head up without having their own "homepage" filled with bad family photos, resumes, descriptions of hobbies, and personal details that nobody but the homepage designer's mother cared about. The trend extended into the commercial space with companies encouraging visitors to make their site their "homepage." Yeah. Right. Of course, today we have blogs, but that's another story.
   
   
6. MIDI songs, animated GIF icons, divider bars, and other garbage: One of the most obnoxious fads was the one where people felt compelled to decorate their sites like a trailer park Christmas tree. Visitors were often first assaulted by an endless MIDI song loop and then forced to wait as animated GIFs of letters mailing themselves and obnoxious background patterns loaded. If you were really unlucky your wait might have been rewarded by the "man digging in a pile of dirt" "under construction" icon that was popular around the same time.

7. Guestbooks: Why anyone thought that asking visitors to leave their name and a comment in a virtual "guestbook" was a good idea is beyond any rational explanation (and why people actually did it also defies logic). But there was a time when "guestbooks" were common. Not only were they annoying, but they were often a feeding ground for spambots who pounced on them to suck up e-mail addresses left behind.
   
   
8. E-Postcards: Nothing prompts copycats like wild success, so it was no surprise that after the early success of BlueMountain.com everyone began to think that e-postcards were a good idea. While many sites were ethical about what they did with the e-mail addresses "e-cards" were sent to, many weren't and "friends" who got a postcard often found themselves bombarded with spam.
   
   
9. Mobile access/mobile content/WAP: Remember when everyone thought that the mobile internet revolution was just around the corner? After NTTDoCoMo's success in the 90's with i-Mode in Japan and multiple modest successes with 3G content in Europe, it seemed as if everyone figured that U.S. consumers would be surfing the Web with their cell phones next. Developers scrambled to make their content available to WAP browsers and handheld devices only to find that most U.S. users didn't care, preferring to take their content in the comfort of their desktops. The dot.bomb crash put the final nail in the coffins of many of the startups that popped up to serve this market that never developed.
   
   
10. Awards: Oh the "award" banners! At one point, no self-respecting site was complete without a dozen or so award banners announcing their worth to the world. Unfortunately most "award" sites were really just thinly veiled scams designed to capture cash via entry fees or vanity sites for folks who just liked to feel that they were the final arbiters of taste. Eventually folks began to realize that earning "Site of the Hour" on "Billy Bob's Big List o' Links n' Stuff" wasn't that much of an honor and most of these things went away. Good riddance.

So goodbye to the fads of the past! But what about the future? I'll cover that next week in my Top Ten List of Future Fads. Until then, update your homepages, keep tweaking your mobile content, sign those guestbooks, personalize your portals, keep clicking those pagecounters, and don't forget to update your animated GIFs. Oh, and if anyone wants a "Big Sean's Super L33T Link List Site" award banner, just send me an e-mail along with your $20 application fee.

AND NOW

Beware the Fads of the Future

How do you know if a new technology is a fad or not? Mainly by looking beyond the technology at everything that's going to have to go into maintaining it, and then examining whether or not your customers even want it. Just because some hipster's making good use of it doesn't mean that your company needs it. Before leaping, here are a few issues to look at:

1. Does it meet a need? If your salesfolk and your Webmaster aren't receiving any request for it, chances are your visitors don't need it or don't want it.
   
2. Who's going to maintain it? Web sites are monsters that eat content. If you're having a hard time keeping the news room updated now, who's going to create that Podcast every week?
   
3. Does it match your overall site strategy? If your site is designed to be a service for your customers who want to look up part numbers, do you think they're going to want to engage in any social networking or download nifty videos of your widgets in action?
   
   
4. Does the company have the resources to maintain it? If your management considers providing the development staff with a bathroom a "fringe benefit," chances are they aren't going to commit the dough to professionally record a Podcast or videocast every week. If you can only afford to do something once, don't do it.
   
   
5. Can your customers/visitors handle the technical demands? You can't just rely on published Web statistics to know the answer to this: You have to know your customers. Believe it or not, not everyone has access to the latest tech. If you're in an industry that sells high-tech gadgets, chances are your customers have access. If you're selling to the Amish … well, take a look at how many Amish Podcasts exist.

All that being said, if you are able to answer "yes" to those questions, you may want to give some of the newer stuff a try.

Unfortunately, many companies can't answer "yes" but do dumb things anyway, jumping on the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it. Here's my list of the greatest potential future fads out there today:

1. Podcasting: Oh yeah, everyone likes Podcasting. It's hot, hip, and with every new announcement made by Apple about zippy new iPods, getting hotter. And while there may be many legitimate uses for Podcasts in your business, you need to think long and hard before you really commit. Do you have professional-quality recording hardware? Do you have people with decent voices (or can you hire them)? Who's going to write the content and research the Podcasts? Who has time? Do your customers actually want to hear from the vice president of operations and listen to his or her ramblings about the state of the factory every week? Can you offer something they can't get anything else? If you're a college student, sure, recording your Podcast in your dorm room is fine. If you're a major company, making audio recordings may be a bigger bite than you're willing to chew. Do a couple of test runs before you commit.
2. Weblogs: Marketing folk really love blogs these days. They're hip. They're now! All the kids are doing it! Anyone who has something to say can have an important, well-read, influential blog if they want, right? Probably not. With hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of blogs out there, there's a lot of competition for eyeballs. Readers won't come just because you're blogging. People read blogs because they actually provide interesting links, insightful commentary and, most of all, authenticity. Corporate blogging is tough unless the higher-ups in PR are willing to give away editorial freedom. Chances are they won't. There's nothing worse than a contrived PR-written blog that screams "marketing." Unless your company has the stones to let bloggers actually blog (rather than write news releases), the talent to actually write the blogs, and the time to keep them fresh, don't do it.
3. Video: With the launch of the new video iPod, you can bet that video's going to be a hot topic in marketing circles (often populated by the kind of folks who are the first ones to buy iPods in the first place). Video's already gotten a lot of attention as The Next Big Thing (see the many articles on PSPcasting ) and a lot more video content is being released to the Web. Unfortunately, video is expensive and difficult to produce. Think long and hard before deciding to jump on this bandwagon: All the questions I asked before apply doubly.
4. RSS: Yes, RSS is a useful method of disseminating information outside of e-mail channels. Yes, RSS is handy for those of us who have to keep tabs on lots and lots of sites and information feeds. But RSS isn't a magic bullet. Just putting an RSS feed on your site doesn't mean diddly if people don't want to read it. Sure, analysts who follow your company, major suppliers, big customers and some members of your local press might need to follow what goes on in your site's news room, but don't expect any but your most loyal customers to subscribe without some major prodding. Don't believe me? Go check out Nooked.com (a business RSS directory) and honestly tell me how many you'd subscribe to.
5. Social Networking: I mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating: Just because social networking is hot doesn't mean that you need it on your site.

Unless you've got a stable of really engaged customers who want to meet each other, can stomach user-submitted content, or care if your customers think that the XB3337 Floor Scraper is "hot" and the W45XJR Lard Tender is "not," chances are that building social networking functionality into your site isn't going to be a major competitive advantage unless you've got a really new and innovative idea of how to use it.

Back to Top