So I am looking to completely redesign a site, keep the domain name, but change the host. Every damn article / tutorial for successful website migration I was looking at is assuming that the old site/domain will still be live - to host the .htaccess file.

In my case, the client has a site with some company (one of those cheap site-builder companies for beginners). I need to completely redesign the layout and content of the site, move it to a new host and keep the domain and SEO juice - surprisingly, the site has a very good ranking.

What is the best way to go about this ?

Thank you.

No worries. Keep the old site live for now and setup hosting elsewhere to get the new design / site ready. Setup the new hosting under the live domains name and then either map a sub domain to this new space or change your windows host file to go to the new ip address when using their live domain name as a url while developing.

 

Once the new site is ready write in the htaccess file to 301 redirect the old site pages to their new versions on the new site. Finally point their live domain to the new host and only then once complete close the old site builder package.

 

It's important to keep the old site live so the juice will still be there.

Edited April 16, 201511 yr by BrowserBugs

No worries. Keep the old site live for now and setup hosting elsewhere to get the new design / site ready. Setup the new hosting under the live domains name and then either map a sub domain to this new space or change your windows host file to go to the new ip address when using their live domain name as a url while developing.

 

Once the new site is ready write in the htaccess file to 301 redirect the old site pages to their new versions on the new site. Finally point their live domain to the new host and only then once complete close the old site builder package.

 

It's important to keep the old site live so the juice will still be there.

ok, perfect.. thanks.

Few things though.. I will be using the same domain name.. so creating a new hosting, without cancelling the old one would not be possible I guess.

Do I store the htaccess file with the 301 redirects on the new site? I always though it stays on the old site, so all the traffic that passes through the old site will get redirected to the new one.

I couldn't find a live example of such a redirected site.. but I am guessing the end-user will see it similar as a parked domain? (example). The url address will physically change. Is that right?

You can have multiple hosting accounts on different servers at any time so long as the ip addresses of the servers are different. It's the domain name and its dns that tells a browser which server to go to to get the web page.

The reason you set up the hosting in the correct live domains name is so when you change the dns to the new server it knows which of the folders to serve the web page from for the domain name.

Until you update the domains dns the world will still see the old site. This gives you the ability to develop on the new hosting account without disruption to the old site.

Secondly I don't know what you have been reading but 301 redirect via htaccess of the old pages to the new will be hosted on the new server not the old. Essentially you never need to edit anything on the current live site to do any of this.

Edited April 17, 201511 yr by BrowserBugs

I couldn't find a live example of such a redirected site.. but I am guessing the end-user will see it similar as a parked domain? (example). The url address will physically change. Is that right?

 

The url will always be the main domain, it'll never change.

 

Say for example www.yourlivedomain.com is hosted on the old server. When a user types this in a browser it looks up the dns for the domain, so for example ns1.mainnamerserver.com. It then goes to this server and asks what ip address the www record should go to. Then the user is redirected to this server for the web page, this is currently the old servers ip address.

 

Once the new site is ready you essentially change the ip address for the www record to go to the new server ip address to get the new web page.

 

A little reading for you.

 

How Domain Name Servers Work

Simple Guide to HTAccess

 

Edit: Because I was on my phone with man hands and missed points out

 

The url will always be the main domain, it'll never change.

 

Say for example www.yourlivedomain.com is hosted on the old server. When a user types this in a browser it looks up the dns for the domain, so for example ns1.mainnamerserver.com. It then goes to this server and asks what ip address the www record should go to. Then the user is redirected to this server for the web page, this is currently the old servers ip address.

 

Once the new site is ready you essentially change the ip address for the www record to go to the new server ip address to get the new web page.

 

A little reading for you.

 

How Domain Name Servers Work

Simple Guide to HTAccess

 

Edit: Because I was on my phone with man hands and missed points out

thanks a lot for this.

Ye, now I figured out that the access file is hosted on the new server. Don't know why I assumed it has to be on the old one (which kind of made more sense to me) - I guess because everyone was recommending that the old site stays live.

Np matey, holler if you get stuck, good luck