301 redirect, yahoo webhosting & no access to .htacess

[globaladv]

I have recently taken over a website which is crying out for a redesign, (which is not the problem in question), before I start to change anything, I checked out the features offered the hosting company (‘Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting’) having not used them before I wanted to see what I have to work with.

What I want to do is redesign the site but in order to do this I will need to setup some 301 redirects at some point as I will be changing some file names etc., I thought ‘this is going to be easy, I just setup the redirects in the .htaccess file when I need to.’ But Yahoo do not give access to the .htaccess file and their only advice after many emails on the subject is to implement a meta refresh for the redirects, Which I do not want to do as I want to keep as much as possible the ranking of the site in search engines in order to build on this in the process of the redesign and not be seen as spamming by the search engines and be penalised.

Is there any way of setting up a 301 redirect without access to .htaccess??????

Is my only option to change hosting providers away from Yahoo?(a process that yahoo seems to make very difficult)and from what I gather will result in the site and the email being down for a long while.

Am I missing a point somewhere or just not understanding somthing simple?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

[SemAdvance]

Is my only option to change hosting providers away from Yahoo?(a process that yahoo seems to make very difficult)and from what I gather will result in the site and the email being down for a long while.

That in a nutshell is what you need to do. Will things be down long..no longer than 24 hours done right.

1. Find new webhost. I am on my 5th with hostgator and they seem to have their act together the best. Reseller hosting works best for me as I have 20+ sites.

2. Open account and start to upload files to new server. Finish upload all files & sites you own to new hosting account.

3. On a Monday or Tuesday go to domain registar and change DNS settings. (Doing this on Friday could cause your site to be down over the weekend and longer) Tuesday latest gives you time to work with support if there is a problem as well.

4. Set up email accounts and site should propogate within 24 hours.

5. Cancel Yahoo hosting account after you check new server stats to see things are ok and traffic has followed you to your new home.

[spiderbait]

If done right, there's absolutely no need for any downtime at all!

SemAdvance is right about the best timing for the DNS switch, and yes you should get all your files there first and test that everything works. But in order to avoid downtime, you need to make sure that you do this while you still have the old hosting working. This way, while the DNS propagates, people will still find your site, whether on the new or the old host while the new DNS make its way around.

Furthermore, for email, you should change the email settings in your email client (such as outlook) so that the account uses the IP address of the POP server rather than the domain name. This way your email client will keep checking the old host for mail, even after the DNS has updated. This is important because someone emailing you from somewhere with an ISP using the old DNS info may still get messages into your old inbox on the old host, whereas your own ISP may have updated and will only be retrieving messages from the new inbox on the new host. That's how mail gets lost during a move.

And to close this loop perfectly, you should duplicate the original email accounts on the new host and set them up as duplicate accounts in your email client, also using the IP address. This way your email client will be checking both the old and the new inboxes explicitly and there is zero chance of dropped mail.

After a few days when you are sure that the DNS has propagated and there are no new messages appearing in the old inbox on the old host, you can delete the old email account from your email client and you'll be finished.

Moved without disruption - it's not as difficult as it sounds if you just think about it and plan beforehand.

[RegDCP]

There are a couple of things wrong with SemAdvance's advice.
When you get a new virtual server you will not be able to upload your files until the name servers propagate.

I run a hosting server and have done many domain transfers. (http://0Grief.com)
The normal way is to:
1) Back up your current website to your computer.
2) Sign up for a new hosting account.
3) Go to your registrar (where your domain is registered), and change the name servers (DNS) to the ones supplied by your new host.
4) Download all your email
5) Wait until the domain name propagates, (usually a couple of hours), and upload your site.
6) Cancel your old hosting account
If your domain is registered with somone other than Yahoo you will not need to deal with them to transfer your domain. All you need to do is to change the name servers at the registrar level.

Reg

[SemAdvance]

Hi Reg

Well my advice is for the 80% of the Internet small businesses that are on shared servers.

Last I checked I was a marketer who happens to know a bit about hosting. Just trying to help.

spiderbait thank you for tying up the post with the email issues. I learned something new here as well today!

Peace

[RegDCP]

Hi Sem,
My advice was for shared servers.

I have been supplying shared hosting since '98.

One does not have access to a shared server until the DNS propagates.

Reg.

[SemAdvance]

You may have been hosting accounts since 1998 but this is 2006 and all of the different hosts that I have used have always allowed access to the sever prior to propogation.

Control Panel And Important Links

Note: "yourdomain.com" should be your sites IP address until your dns has prorogated.
* Your reseller control panel is located at http://yourdomain.com/whm
* Your control panel is located at http://yourdomain.com/cpanel
* Your webmail is located at http://yourdomain.com/webmail
* You can view your site before the dns has prorogated at http://iphere/~usernamehere/
Note: Don't forget the trailing / and the ~
* Everywhere it says youriphere put YOUR IP FROM WELCOME EMAIL. Example http://99.99.999.9/cpanel This is an example do not actually put 99.99.999.9 since this is not the ip in your email.

As can be seen by the snippet of email from my webhosting provider, I can access my server prior to progation.

[RegDCP]

Thanks for the tip..
It works on my new servers with cpanel, not my old ones without.

Reg

[jbdean]

Well, your first problem is that your site is with Yahoo. For me, Yahoo and AOL should just join forces as they rank the same ... they are simply rank!

My suggestion is that you switch to ace-host.net. Their prices are the lowest and their c/s is incredible! (No, I don't work for them or get anything for refering you to them). I've been with other hosting services and with this one over 2 years and I have no complaints (they host all 4 of my sites). I swear by them.

Cheers and good luck!

[spiderbait]

Thanks for the tip..
It works on my new servers with cpanel, not my old ones without.

Reg
Hi Reg,

I've worked with a lot of different hosts and while many of them are cPanel, many of them are not. But I've still never come across one that didn't provide some method for accessing the site without using the domain name.

Since virtual hosting on a shared server is essentially just a subaccount of a main account, it's usually a URL with some combination of the host's domain and the subaccount name.

So, my advice still stands and if anyone has a site that can't afford downtime, the only way to be absolutely sure is to overlap the hosting between the new and old hosts (for both web and mail servers), preferably for at least 4 days just to be on the safe side.

And SemAdvance, I'm glad that was helpful. I've helped dozens of clients to move hosts and have been able to help them follow those steps and move their email accounts seamlessly.

[globaladv]

Thanks for all the advice guys!!

It looks as if I have to ditch yahoo, which is what I expected anyway. I was hopeing that there was a way around the .htaccess problem.

Hopefully the process should go smoothly.

Thank again!

[dburdon]

Globaldv,
let me know how you get on. I'm in a similar boat with one project. Seems that many of the larger shared hosting providers are ignorant of the SEO implications of their policies.

[SemAdvance]

Reg

Glad we could help...didn't want to argue with you but felt I had to... friend

Dave

I have as I said moved hosting again for the 5th or 6th time.

I left ivhosting.com due to the fact that a site I bought needed auto increment feature and the host did not have php up to date to support my site.

http://www.hostgator.com has been terrific and for my simple reseller account, they moved over 20+ sites and databases that I own free of charge...which in my eyes worth a $300.00 itself..

That saved me a day or two of time and stress....and I just bought this site http://www.freekicktemple.com which is a Joomla CMS and seems like it would be a bear for me to move, I asked hosgator and they said no problem for them to move it..

I hate to sound like a walking ad for a company but they have done fair by me...a rarity at times in this day and age....

[incrediblehelp]

So Yahoo doesnt offer any redirection services with their hosting? Am I correct in understanding that this is the problem?

Can you use a 301 redirection service (http://www.301url.com/)?

[globaladv]

So Yahoo doesnt offer any redirection services with their hosting? Am I correct in understanding that this is the problem?

Can you use a 301 redirection service (http://www.301url.com/)?

Thats handy to know, but I think that it would be better to get rid of yahoo for another hosting provider - Just to keep things simple & in one place.

[SemAdvance]

basically it comes down to Yahoo cannot allow individual users to access the server settings.

Yahoo has many small business set up on it's servers and cannot afford a server crash. Letting other access it's servers would be a huge risk.

So Yahoo does not allow full scripting on it's servers so it is better to find a hosting company that allows full use (or as much as one can get) for scripting needs.

[alken]

I have been very happy with Hypermart.net for 3 websites I have posted <http://www.alken-murray.com>, <http://www.even-flo.com> and <http://www.clear-flo.com>.

Hypermart initially sets you up as your account name (probably domain name without a hypen) in front of a period that precedes hypermart.net, so my main site can still be accessed as
<http://alkenmurray.hypermart.net>. This allows you to post your entire website before you transfer your domain name or even before you register a domain name, which is how I did the Alken-Murray website before I registered both alken-murray.com and alkenmurray.com, in case someone forgot the hyphen in our company name.

Two of our authorized distributors, BioQuatic Supply in New England and PhoenixProcesses in Oklahoma both signed up with Hypermart too and have remained happy with their service. The traffic for my main site is so strong that I had to upgrade the service way beyond the actual pages posted to the site (slightly under 800) and we only use 1 POP account for a NY employee who has no other e-mail account, but gets on the web via boyfriend, parents, etc. I forward all the general addresses to my local ISP and my brother's forwards to him, too. Its nice to have the option for POP and SMTP or to forward to a personal e-mail address. If you use Eudora Pro for e-mail, you can alter the "reply to" address so that e-mail goes through the domain coming back to you, which looks more professional than coming to a home e-mail address.

You can also take advantage of a number of useful free services Hypermart offers, from spell checking and code checking to photo optimization assistance, all FREE.

Sincerely yours,
Valerie Anne Edwards
President/Webmistress
Alken-Murray Corporation & Fenton Farm Inc.