Does moving servers hurt PR and overall rankings?

[rcmedia2004]

Hi,

I need to move a fairly established e-commerce site to a new hosting company/server.

I currently have PageRank 5 for this site and finally starting to get some decent rankings and hopeful signals with my top keywords too.

Will moving the site erase or hurt any of this?

Thanks in advance.

[jestep]

There should be no effect from changing servers.

If your site has to go down, make sure its as quick as possible.

[cyanide]

Ditto what jestep said

I don't think I can count the number of times I have moved a website or a client site to another server. I have yet to see it affect pr or rank.

That said, if the host's ip address has been black-listed, then you might have a problem.

Downtime too can have a minor effect, if transferring your site and it is down when the bots are travelling it.

A good host should be able to help/instruct move your site with no or very, very little downtime

[gene02]

I have had to change servers twice this year first time company was down more than they where up. second time customer support didn't know what they where doing with cold fusion I guees I was there first cf customer not sure about that just didn't get the right service. however when you change you will want to time so that you have propagated to new server when spiders come around if you are down when they visit it could hurt for couple days till they come back other than that no big deal. If you don't already I recommend dedicated IP

[Aviator]

[quote="rcmedia2004"]Hi,

Will moving the site erase or hurt any of this?

quote]

If you are moving to another shared server, make sure that you know who else is being hosted on it. Server response time and downtime caused by troublesome shipmates will all affect your website, if not your PR. Assuming no server performance issues or falling in with a blacklisted IP block, changing IP addresses will not impact your PR.

[jglionheart]

A Biggy!
After I fired our web designer and decided to learn to do the site myself--I found out that all the company's he had signed us up with were extremely expensive.
During my learning experience--I had met several people (so called computer experts and SEO's) who steered me to really CHEAP hosts--of course they didn't take in account I had a huge site and e-commerce--strange huh? Shouldn't experts know?
So I ran out of disk space and bandwidth and--ka-chink-ka-chink-ka-chink...another reason I am subscribing to this newsletter.
So-anyway--I finally decided on Yahoo--that was a nightmare to transfer as my first web designer named files and images with blank spaces--100's of them and Yahoo wouldn't accept them-nor abbreviations nor foreign punctuation-etc. it took me 2 weeks to get my site back together--it was like a bulldozer ran through.The other two CHEAP hosts accepted the transfer fine.
Okay--so I am with Yahoo who also has a shopping cart--a terrific biz email program...plus they just upgraded their disk space and bandwidth FREE! So I am paying what I deem to be--reasonable.
I have a shopping cart to use with them when I decide to change-over at some point-or not.
Just make sure-you dot all your I's and cross your T's...the domain transference always took me about 24 hours-I use Network Solutions for a registrar--they are great and have FAST-Dependable-human tech support!
Check their rules on file names.....and then go for it.
It was worth it for me...the email program alone--captures 98% of the spam..and thats wonderful--I'm not ready to take Viagra yet.LOL
Good Luck.
LionHeart
http://60sfurther.com

[agotoguy]

Moving your site should be a snap if you have everything put together properly. Here's a good checklist that I like to use when transferring my clients data. Of course there might be a few hitches or glitches here and there with a new provider but if everything is in order it will make it much smoother.

With The Current Host:
Create a folder on your desktop.
Access your account via FTP
Need a great FREE FTP client go to SmartFTP.com
Dowload of your site's existing content to the folder on your desktop.
Backup any databases you may need into another folder on your desktop.
Finished

At The New Host:
Signup and get your control panel access. (As a security precaution use a new username and password with the new host!)
Log into the control panel and re-create your email accounts.
If you need Frontpage or extensions make sure they have been enabled in your control panel or ask the host to do it for you.
Look through the control panel to get familiar with it's functionality and features. Enable anything you think might be critical to your site's functionality. If you don't what those are you're in trouble to start with!
Then after that is complete upload your site via FTP from the folder on your desktop.

Important: If you are using cgi, php, asp, or other scripts or software you will need to reinstall and configure them. This is the reason you backed up your databases. Use the DB backups on your desktop to do this. If you don't know how to reinstall them ask your host to do it. They might charge you extra but it's worth it to make sure it gets done properly.

You should have a "temporary URL" to work with your site and get all this done BEFORE you change nameservers from your current host to your new one. If you don't get that ability get a new host! Once everything is up and running right on the new server you can change nameservers.

This is the "no downtime" method employed by my company and many others. I may have missed a few things in posting but I am sure some other hosts might chime in with their comments too.

And no you will never need a dedicated IP for the search engines (it's one of the oldest SEO myth's) but using this method will ensure that your site stays online through the nameserver changes.

By the way Verisign has stated that after September 8th those changes should take less than 5 to 10 minutes.

Good luck!

Joe

[Kenai Alaska]

We also have utilized different hosts from time to time. Do not make your choice on price alone. There are many great hosting companies out there to choose from. We are currently with Interland and could not be happier. The past year has been superb and the support is worth a thousand times the price we pay. But Interland is only one of the choices you have and just because we are very pleased is not to say others were not. All I can say is that they have earned our business many times over.
This would be a great thread, or maybe a poll! Just who is the best hosting company out there in cyberland? I would like to here more from others about the positive experiences with there hosting companies. This could be a great way of promoting good companies without bashing on any heads. Just list the positive side and if they don’t get listed, well, you be the judge.
Interland gets a solid 10 here.

[kikkertm]

Hmmm.. I wouldn't be so sure.. I don't really agree with the previous statements.

I would also like to change my hosting provider but one thing is holding me back. My site is currently hosted by a UK company (with a 'UK IP range' if something like that exists). I actually rank very well in the google.co.uk site while I never ever promoted the site on that engine. I mainly focus on the US market (pricing in US$)and on Google.com but am still ranking well in the UK. For many keywords, my .com ranks high amids a collection of .co.uk sites.

My guess (and that of some others on this forum) is that this might be caused because the site is hosted in the UK and the SE's detect this and assume you are focussing on the UK market.

I'm fairly much convinced that if I would move to another web host (in the US), I would loose my high Google.co.uk rankings over time. I have no proof. But seeing more and more localisation is going on with the SE's (and one of the variables to determine your 'locale' might be location of your hosting servers), I think you cannot simply state that moving hosts will not have any affect on your rankings although it shouldn't matter for your PR.

PS: Is the poster asking how to change the site ? I thought the question was if it would / could affect his PR / ranking ??

[mktplace]

If your products are for people in the US, then does it matter if you get good listings in a search engine that nobody from the US uses?

i.e. how many of your SALES come from the google.co.uk link? If it is a lot, then it may be worth it (find another hosting company in the UK!), but if not, then it probably won't matter much.

Right on, gotoguy! I have a couple of websites that are almost 10 years old now, and I cannot even remember how many hosting companies I have been through. Now I use Coast Inc (in Atlanta) and One World Hosting. No complaints with either one, and tech support has been just fine at both.

to me the keys are:
making sure the ISP has multiple tier 1 connections to the Network (nobody has mentioned this yet, hmmm)
dedicated IP address not in a black list
moving and getting the new site up before changing DNS

[cyanide]

kikkertm
You have a valid point, however in defence of other posters, the original post was very general and didn't indicate geographics.

However, there does appear to be a connection with Ips and countries. There is a definite(from what I've seen) connection with extensions though. For most, in order to register a country specific domain, you have to have a presence there. The search engines, specifically Google respects that.

From what I've seen a Canadian domain (.ca) will(generally) be given more weight for canadian searches. The same can be said for the UK

[DrTandem1]

Yes, moving to a new host can be done smoothly. First, establish the new account and copy your current site's files there. Make sure the new host gives you access to the server before you have the domain pointing there. After the new site checks out okay, have your domains point to the new DNS.

It takes about 48 hours for the DNS to be updated throughout the internet. This is not a problem, because you still have the old site up. So, during the transfer, some will get one host and others will get the new host. Payment gateways for e-commerce must be taken into consideration as well.

Lastly, there should be no change in your ranking with the search engine UNLESS a huge number of external links point to your site from the same host. Some engines disregard external links from the same main IP of the same host.

[glyphbane]

We recently moved servers over the summer. Because our former IT staff was no longer with the company, we were unaware of several domains that pointed to our old IP address and servers.

Google had indexed us based on our main URL. Yahoo had indexed us based on one of the forgotten secondary URLS. 5 months later we are just recovering our ranking in Yahoo.

What we found was that moving servers does not affect it... but making careless DNS mistakes can be very costly. I would recommend keeping both sites live for at least 1-2 months after DNS cut over.

If all traffic halts from the old server... then you are OK. If it is still getting traffic, chances are you forgot some URL / DNS somewhere.

As with anything, be sure to have a really good, clear cut over plan.. as well as rollback plan.

[EJRS.COM]

This is great as I am moving stuff to my new server.

[venividi]

Originally Posted by cyanide

kikkertm

From what I've seen a Canadian domain (.ca) will(generally) be given more weight for canadian searches. The same can be said for the UK

a question: do you think that having a domain of a particular country is enough to be given more weight or that your site must also be hosted in that country?

Valeria

[shandy]

great topic as I am in the process of moving host. I was with Registerfly.com. My site was constantly down and the service was appaling. I was so angry that I requested to cancel my hosting and get all my money refunded. They did exactly that and now I am in the air and the site is down. Of course I signed up with a new host immediately, but it still takes another day or so and the site is still down. Very annoying. I admit it was a mistake to cancel everything with Registerfly before I had signed up with another host but the site was down with them for 3 days before they even attempted to fix the problem.
What a useless company.

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by venividi

a question: do you think that having a domain of a particular country is enough to be given more weight or that your site must also be hosted in that country?

Valeria

Hi Valeria. Yes, I do
I have a canadian client who had a .com domain with an IP address in the US. We recently switched his site to a .ca (IP still in the US) and now he has started to show up higher in Canadian searches.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by venividi

a question: do you think that having a domain of a particular country is enough to be given more weight or that your site must also be hosted in that country?

We seem to have two threads going on concurrently about this question...

My observations are that inclusion in the regional listings is gained by EITHER having a regional domain name (e.g., .ca, .co.uk, .com.au) OR by hosting in that country. (It is also possible that other information (e.g., local postal address on site) may also be a factor - undetermined.)

If ou don't have a regional domain, then get regional hosting. But if you do have a regional domain, host it wherever you wish.

[eitemiller]

I have a .com that is targeting the US. However, we are hosted by http://www.alentus.com which is a Canadian company (great rates, great service - a fine company, btw). Because of this combination, we rank extrememly high on the Canadian version on MSN (ie "Grand Canyon" and we are on the second page, also "Prescott, Arizona" and we come up #2 on Canadian, no-where to be found on American). These results just cannot be duplicated on the American side.

So now we are wondering - if we transfer our hosting to an American company, will we have more positive results on the American side of search engines? If Canadian MSN has the ability to increase our SERPs because we are hosted by a Canadian company, then why can't the American MSN hurt/penalize us because it "thinks" we are Canadian based?

Damn shame to leave a good hosting company just because they are not in America, but I am afraid we have no choice. Any input on this would be appreciated :)

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by eitemiller

I have a .com that is targeting the US. However, we are hosted by http://www.alentus.com which is a Canadian company... Damn shame to leave a good hosting company just because they are not in America, but I am afraid we have no choice.

No need to do that and it probably won't change anything anyway -- check the "xxx of approximately yyy,yyy,yyy results" at the top of your google listings -- my guess is you'll find that you just have a lot more competition for your search terms in the US.

[eitemiller]

Originally Posted by minstrel

No need to do that and it probably won't change anything anyway -- check the "xxx of approximately yyy,yyy,yyy results" at the top of your google listings -- my guess is you'll find that you just have a lot more competition for your search terms in the US.

I disagree with that, I believe the competition is the same...

***American MSN search for "Grand Canyon" (with quotes) = 440487 results - we are not in the top 120.
***Canadian MSN search for same = 444491 results - we come up #4

***American MSN search for Prescott, Arizona (no quotes) = 131101 results - we are not in the top 120.
***Canadian MSN for same = 131597 results, our AZ site map comes up at #2

***American MSN search for Prescott National Forest = 28177 results, we are #28
***Canadian MSN search for same = 28186 results, we have the #2 spot.

The closeness of the results leads me to believe they both SE's are in fact pulling from the same pool - those numbers are just too close to each other for them NOT to be.

Since we are a website that offers free information on recreational activities, we have thousands of keywords. If I find something that is going to make an overall boost in my SERPs, I am going to want to do it. Talk me out of it, because it's going to be a bit of a pain in the butt, but I think I have to.

btw - we are http://www.eatstayplay.com