Switching Providers is as EASY as 1-2-3!
1. Sign Up & Upload Your Files
Order your hosting account securely by visiting http://www.lainterweb.com/order. The order forms will ask you for your domain name, and give you 3 options. Just pick the last one, "I Will Handle My Domain Registration/Transfer." This will set up your account without making any changes to your existing domain registration information. This will allow you work on your new account while people still see your web site up on the old host.
Once you complete the ordering process, you should receive an e-mail with our "Welcome Letter" to the 2 addresses you specified on the form once your payment has been processed and your account has been activated. It is important to give e-mail addresses that you currently use, and not e-mail addresses you plan to use once you set up your account. It's also important that one of these addresses NOT be at the domain you are currently setting up, even if you currently have e-mail on other servers. Our e-mail system checks our local accounts first before sending mail, even if the DNS information points elsewhere. E-mail would then be sent to our local account of the same name before going to the account to which the DNS information points.
The information contained within the Welcome Letter will allow you to access the account and upload your web site information. You may have this information saved locally, or you may need to download it from your current host to your local machine, then upload it to our servers. To accomplish this you may need an FTP or "File Transfer Protocol" program that will allow you to move information from your local machine to your host servers. You can find a free one here: http://freeware.aceftp.com/. There is a link to our "Getting Started" section which provides you with further details on common questions about moving your site and setting up your e-mail.
Make sure you have uploaded and tested your new account to be certain it is working the way you want before proceeding to step 3. Also, recreate any e-mail addresses you were using at your previous host through the Mail Manager in your site's Control Panel.
Don't feel comfortable doing the move yourself, or do you have a complex site with databases and a shopping cart? There are companies who specialize in moving websites from host to host. If you want to have the move done for you, consider the services of WebSite Movers. Simple sites can be moved for as little as $20.
2. Set Up Your E-mail Accounts & Change Your Domain Name Server Information:
You will need to set-up your email accounts on our servers in order to receive mail to the same boxes you had on your previous host. Email accounts are setup through the “Mail Manager” icon in your account’s Control Panel. The account Control Panel can be accessed via your IP address which is provided in your Welcome Letter. There will be a direct link to the Control Panel in the Welcome Letter using the IP address of your account.
Login to your Control Panel and open the Mail Manager. There is a link on the left side of the screen to enter a “New Address”. You may specify a name for the account and a password. Repeat this process until you have all your email accounts set up. Some changes may need to be made to the settings in your email software to read mail from our servers. Consult our Getting Started section for more information.
Domain name registrars and hosting companies are rarely the same entities. Most web hosts use partnerships with existing domain name registrars to register domain names and rarely provide this service themselves. So your registrar is probably not the same place as your current web host. You'll need to know who your registrar is, and, if the registrar requires it, have account log-in information in order to modify information about your domain name.
What needs to be changed is the "name server" information. This is basically the information that tells browsers reading the internet where to find a website when someone types the domain name in or follows a link to the domain name. LA InterWeb's name server information is as follows:
Primary Server Hostname: ns.lainterweb.com
Primary Server Netaddress: 65.108.51.165
Secondary Server Hostname: ns2.lainterweb.com
Secondary Server Netaddress: 65.108.52.245
Many registrars will only require the hostnames, but some will also want the netaddresses. Replace any existing name server information with LA InterWeb's in order to point the site at us. The exact procedure for doing this will vary from registrar to registrar, and if you have any specific questions, you will need to contact your individual registrar.
Name server information changes take about 24-48 hours to propagate. During this period, both old and new sites need to be active so that a version of the site is available from any location. This will avoid any unnecessary downtime. After 48 hours, virtually everyone should be going to the new host. This same period applies to e-mail as well. You will probably receive mail to both old and new accounts during this period.
3. Cancel Your Old Account
Once everything is going to your new account, you can cancel the old one. Changing name server information and setting up a new hosting account will not automatically cancel any existing accounts at other hosts. If you do not cancel your previous account it will remain and the host will keep billing you.
Ready to order? Click here to order your hosting account!