A Step-By-Step Guide to Changing Web Hosts - Backup, Backup, Backup
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If you’ve been diligent with your backups, you’ve got a lot of insurance to fall back on; yet you should always make the latest backup. If you haven’t, before you do anything else, do a backup now. Backup anything and everything you can and don’t forget your database if your site relies on it. Save at least 2 copies and store them separately. One copy for you to work with, the other as an archive. Do not underestimate how easy it can be to overwrite the files as you make changes or simply mess it up.
If you’re moving to a host who has as different control panel, make a manual backup by downloading all your files because different control panels may not be able to restore the backups made by your old host. They also have different directory structures so your file trees will be in a mess. If you need to, make a small note file with notepad with memos for you to remember the old server configurations. This will help you as you make changes on your new host server and save the confusion moving back and forth between hosts. Remember to make the correct transfer type (ASCII or Binary) as you download. If your download is not right chances are you’ll have a tough time getting your site to work on the new host server.
If server logs are especially important, remember to back those up too. There is no sure-fire way of moving logs yet because different hosts may log statistics differently. So the best thing to do is to download them and use a log analyzer on your computer to make references to them later on.
Next: Gathering the Odds >>
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