Switching Web Hosts Without A Minute of Downtime

It’s not uncommon for webmasters to switch web hosts. However, one of the biggest issues that can arise when switching web hosts is heavy downtime for your website and as a result other services such as email services go down too. Thus causing great inconvenience for your audience and most importantly, high levels of stress for you! In this article, we explain step-by-step how we can make your transfer over to Jolly Leaf effortless with absolutely no downtime. Guaranteed!

 

Step 1: Join Jolly Leaf!

The first step towards a smooth web host switch is to join Jolly Leaf. You can join our hosting platform absolutely free! This way you will have somewhere to transfer your website to from your previous web host. At this point, don’t cancel your web hosting account with your current web host and don’t tell them you are planning to leave. This is because sometimes the bigger, least ethical web hosts, like to cancel the web hosting accounts of customers who they hear are leaving their services – just to be annoying!

 

Step 2: Start Transferring Your Files

After signing up for your new Jolly Leaf web hosting account, you will have received an email from us explaining how to connect to your new web hosting using FTP or by logging into cPanel.  You can start switching web hosts by downloading your files from your current web host and start uploading them to your new hosting account. We can help you do this – just let us know.

 

Step 3: Change Your Nameservers

Now you have duplicated your website onto your Jolly Leaf hosting account, you can configure your domain name to direct visitors to your new web hosting account with Jolly Leaf. This can be done by changing your domain name’s nameservers to that of Jolly Leaf. The nameservers of your new web hosting account will have been emailed to you upon signing up to us.

 

Step Four: Wait a Little While

When changing your nameservers, your website visitors won’t be directed to your website on its new web hosting account straight away. This is because DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to to propagate worldwide and therefore some visitors will be directed to your old web host and some will be directed to your new web host. After 48 hours, all visitors should be directed to your website on its new web hosting account.

 

Step Five: Cancel Your Old Hosting Account

Now that you’ve made the switch to better web hosting and have completed the transfer process, you can now cancel your web hosting account with your old web hosting provider. Remember that if you have your domain name registered with your old hosting provider, don’t cancel that!

 

Need Help Switching Web Hosts?

If you need any help along the way, we can help you transfer your website over to us or do it all for you – absolutely free! If you need our help, just simply get in touch.