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It is not something new that there are many people around us who raise the issue of switching to another web host or IP address being devoid of any sort of hiccups in Google. In this article, the experience of moving mattcutts.com from one IP to another IP just with the aid of altering the host is elucidated. Its easier to accomplish having a static website than a dynamic website. The idea doesnt vary but it is better if you can spend a day while your website can swing between 2 IP addresses. Some steps are there:

Step 1: Sign up with a good web host provider

Its always wise to make an intensive research or follow some references in order to have a good web host. As far as I am concerned, I selected csoft.net after the research that did exhibit a brilliant readership, whereas, pair.com was the selection of my non-SEO friend. To clarify the fact, we can assume shifting from csoft.net to pair.com and the IP is going to change then from 63.x.x.x to 65.x.x.x. A machine makes use of DNS system (like 61.115.6.132 ) in order to map websites to the IP address.

Step 2: Create a backup of your website on the new web host

Having a static website is good as it would just mean copying the whole file to the new web host ” thats it. But having a blog is a bit hard since it generally involves MySQL for storage of posts. Some e-Commerce sites are more difficult for this purpose as the database is always synced over there. In such a case, you might have to set up a replica of the database between the old and the new location during the transition.

Well, here, an instance is given of a WordPress blog that makes use of MySQL database and can come up with a bit of problem for some hours. Just imagine that you have made use of FTP in order to copy the static files from one web host to other. A new MySQL database has to be created now. The same username and database name might work but if it doesnt, you are in need of putting the WordPress wp-config.php on the new location with a view to update the username, database name, and other relevant things.

You now have a new SQL database so that you can get away with the old one, copy it to the new one, and then load the database there.

Keep in mind that you not only have a username and a password for both the web hosts, but different usernames and passwords for the database at every single location. You may also have the MySQL database stored on a unique location, which is the reason I showed the host option while database restoration. Also, if the new host has a unique option for the database, you will be required to edit the wp-config.php file, else WordPress will be unable to access the database on your new host.

You have similar copies of your website at two different locations. If your blog is just updated with a few comments daily, it is not a big deal if a comment is posted or if someone changes your database during a time when the transition is taking place. However, if your site is huge and based on e-commerce, you will need to work hard to keep both databases synchronized.

Step 3: Changing the DNS to point to the new web host

This is the most important thing. When Googlebot or anyone tries to reach your site, they first look for your IP address. They do their best to ensure the genuineness by rechecking the IP address after about 500 fetches, or even check if certain number of hours have elapsed. Usually people using DNS-enabled browsers are affected by TTL [a setting " Time to Live], which is measured in seconds and says The IP address you fetched will be safe for x seconds; you can cache this IP address and not bother to look it up again for that many seconds. The browser will move very slowly as you have tracked the IP address for all the content on each webpage of your website.

Sites like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. possess a bit short DNS TTL setting (300-900 seconds) because you intend to have one of them in order to make the data center mechanics perfect for endowing the machines with good data provided you have several data centers. TTL is immensely important as a short TTL lets you drag the IP address of a data center out of the rotary motion very quickly.

The Google Dance phenomenon lasted for about a week and would show the old as well as the new results depending on the data center which the user hit. This is because every data center was taken down and brought back up after loading with new data. T needed many days to switch the data to all the centers. Webmasters checked out www2.google.com or www3.google.com as they led them to the latest data centers. Today, the production system is better equipped to switch these things in much less time.

Step 4: Wait while the DNS change is propagated through the internet

This is a TTL function and is based on whether you are switching to those name servers which are present in the DNS currently. DNS is hierarchical, and thus it will take some time for the DNS caches to be flushes as the TTL is exceeded. The switch, which takes place at the root of DNS, would be faster only if you use a smart registrar and a known set of the new name servers. The dig+trace domain can be used in UNIX and Linux for confirming that the new name server is present on the root server.

Step 5: You are almost done with your task when you are sure that Googlebot is fetching from the new web host and the IP address. In such a case, the old website can be shut down.

You can check your IP address by pinging your domain. The old visitors might be using the old IP address from their own DNS cache, but the new visitors should be getting the new one. Some people have a long TTL set, and they should be allowed two days. After that, you can deactivate hosting on the old location. You can check your logs for a fail-safe confirmation of this. When your log mentions no one visiting from the old location, your work is fully done.

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