Moving your website from one host to another is relatively straight forward with a bit of planning. It can also be completed with little or no downtime on your website.

Checklist for non database sites

If you do not have the ability to update your name servers or DNS names you may have to ask your provider to do it for you

It normally takes 24-48hrs for the name servers to be registered across the whole of the internet. Once this process is compete site will automatically be running from your new hosting company

Once the name servers have updated you can then cancel your old host.

Checklist for database driven websites

If you have a database it can be a little more complex as you need to make sure that all of your database retain their integrity and that no data is lost in the transfer.

If you have a database that is not written to much then the switch can be close to the above scenario.

It normally takes 24-48hrs for the name servers to be registered across the whole of the internet. Once this process is compete site will automatically be running from your new hosting company.

Ideally you should stop your website until the name servers update so that the database maintains its integrity.

Remember until the site switches over to the new host, anybody using the existing site will write data to the database on the existing site.

An alternative is to re-configure the site on your old host so that it writes to the database on the new site. Again, once the name servers are updated you can cancel your old hosting account.