Moving Your Virtual Space

Last Updated on Thursday, 24 March 2011 06:10

So you’re savvy with moving your office from one building to another - even from one city to another. In fact, you're proud to say that you know what relocation is all about!

But wait - what about your website? That's right, your online presence, your spot in cyberspace, your patch of alien green grass. You may well ask, "Well, what about it?" Here’s what: moving your virtual space can be every bit as daunting as moving your brick-and-mortar premises.

From transferring domain names to moving websites and email, things can quickly begin to resemble the Weber Brothers Circus if you aren't forearmed with knowledge.

Before you can be forearmed, though, we need to clarify some fundamental concepts. "Fundamental concepts" sounds ominous, but we’ll keep it simple, I promise. If you already know all this, feel free to skip through to the juicy bits.

Once upon a time, there was a domain name

If you have owned a website for many years - or inherited one - chances are that you may have forgotten you own a domain name and a website. So what's the difference? Simply put, a domain name is akin to an empty brick-and-mortar office that you lease for a certain period of time.

So where does my website come in?

A website consists of various types of files. Just as you would add furniture and fittings to your office to make it usable, you would add your website to your domain name.

The website (that is, your website files) is placed on a Web Server, a computer specifically designed to allow the general Net-going public to view your website files as "pages". These website files are associated with your domain name, so that when Jane Bloggs types in www.business.co.nz into her browser (such as Firefox or Internet Explorer), she can view the associated website file as a web page.

Many of the larger companies own and maintain their own Web Server for this purpose and, thus, host their own website. This could involve considerable time, expertise and expense. Therefore, the vast majority of New Zealand businesses pay a web hosting company to host their website. Let’s assume that you belong to the latter group. The web hosting company, or web host, owns and runs the Web Server on which you rent some space to save your website's files. Typically, this involves a monthly "hosting" or rental cost that can vary, depending on the space and hosting services provided.

What does all this have to do with moving?

The question is, what happens when you decide to move from one web host to another? First off, let's break down the process of moving your virtual space:

1. Domain: You need to transfer your domain name from your existing web host (let’s call them Old_Web_Host) to a new web host (let’s call them New_Web_Host) This transfer is required in order to keep your domain name and your website files on the same page of the book, as it were, and associate them correctly.
2. Website: You need to transfer the website files from the Old_Web_Host to the New_Web_Host.
3. Email: Assuming that you don't have your own in-house Mail Server, you also need to transfer all the virtual mailboxes, e-mail and e-mail addresses associated with your domain name from the Old_Web_Host to the New_Web_Host.

The virtual transfer mantra

Domain, website, email (in that order)

The virtual transfer checklist

To make the move with as little disruption as possible to your website and email, here's a handy checklist of
5 ¹⁄₂ items (yeah, real short, I know):