Once in a while in the course of building or creating an online business you’ll decide it’s time to pick up your web property or properties and take on the task of moving to a new web host. More often than not this is a rather simple undertaking but can also have its share of difficulties. By taking a few simple precautions you can go a long way to avoiding some of the more common mishaps that can occur.

Requirement Fulfillment

The very first thing you should do when making the decision about moving web hosts is to verify that your new web hosting company provides all the necessary requirements your website needs. Things such as: Windows or UNIX, PHP, ASP, Perl, MySQL or other server side variables. You will want to double check that your new host has the right PHP or Perl or other modules installed.

There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve successfully moved to a new web host than to find your site doesn’t work and the host has no intention of providing the necessary requirements. There are even some that will leave you stuck in a contract or simply stop responding to support requests. Again, verify the new host supports all of the requirements you’ll be needing.

Transfer Process

Next you will want plan every single step of the moving process that you can think of. Even down the tiniest detail, I’ve heard of people who go so far as to physically write down every single file from every single directory. Really this is not a bad idea as it’s at the planning stage where almost all and any errors can be prevented. You’ll want to keep track of file names, any file changes from the original files that you’ve made, database usernames and passwords, directory structures and any other little thing that you can think of.

Once you’ve completed the planning process, make backups of everything on your site. This is a good idea to do on a day to day basis anyhow, but in the event of a mishap in the moving process having a backup could turn out to be a site saver.

Now it’s time for you to actually do the physical act of moving to the new web host. While moving, take your time and don’t jump the gun or get too excited if something seems to not be going as planned. Adapt as best as you can and calmly troubleshoot along the way, more than likely everything is going along just fine.

Testing

After the transfer of files is complete, test. Test and test and test some more. Make sure that every nuance of your website works exactly like you want it to do. This is something that many people over look because they’re so excited to get back to promoting or marketing or interacting with their sites users. Test everything and make sure it’s working great.

By following these easy suggestions, being patient and careful you’ll help the process of moving to a new web host seem like it your site didn’t miss a beat at all.

Brandon is a technology blogger who loves to write on latest in the world of website development. He understands the importance of having a reliable web hosting provider and he occasionally refers to top10webhosting.com to find out and compare list of cpanel hosting Companies Online.