Changing Web Hosting
-
We're about to change web hosting providers and I'm wondering whether there's an "optimal" way to do this without losing any SEO value. Is it as simple as changing hosts without SEO in mind - point the domain to the new host?
-
As long as as the hosting change goes smoothly - i.e. no extended downtime during the transition - there should be no SEO impact.
The file that's even more important than the robots.txt is the .htaccess file. You need to make sure it's migrated to the new site as well as it could contain significant numbers of redirects that need to be preserved in the new setup. It's a frequently missed element if the hosting transfer is done manually.
Paul
-
By page names I mean the URL, so for example
www.yoursite.com/about.htm must not be changed to www.yoursite.com/aboutus.htm or anything else.
There is nothing in the transfer process that would cause the URL to change but often website owners take the transfer as an opportunity to make changes that they have been planning for a while.
-
What do you mean by page names? Titles of pages? And yes I'll make sure the robots.txt file is on the new host after we point the domain. Thanks Sean.
-
There should be no issue, just make sure you have a back up of the site before you change anything.
Do not change page names and make sure you have the Robots txt file is on the site once you have moved
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Changing URL structure of site, including AMP - redirect AMP too?
So, I'm changing all the URLs of a site, including all its AMP URLs, I'll be redirecting all the normal URLs, but do I need to also redirect all the AMP pages?
Technical SEO | | alksfjasldfu934341 -
Control indexed content on Wordpress hosted blog...
I have a client with a blog setup on their domain (example: blog.clientwebsite.com) and even though it loads at that subdomain it's actually a Wordpress-hosted blog. If I attempt to add a plugin like Yoast SEO, I get the attached error message. Their technical team says this is a brick wall for them and they don't want to change how the blog is hosted. So my question is... on a subdomain blog like this... if I can't control what is in the sitemap with a plugin and can't manually add a sitemap because the content is being pulled from a Wordpress-hosted install, what can I do to control what is in the index? I can't add an SEO plugin... I can't add a custom sitemap... I can't add a robots.txt file... The blog is setup with domain mapping so the content isn't actually there. What can I do to avoid tags, categories, author pages, archive pages and other useless content ending up in the search engines? 7Zo93b2.png
Technical SEO | | ShawnW0 -
How can I block incoming links from a bad web site ?
Hello all, We got a new client recently who had a warning from Google Webmasters tools for manual soft penalty. I did a lot of search and I found out one particular site that sounds roughly 100k links to one page and has been potentialy a high risk site. I wish to block those links from coming in to my site but their webmaster is nowhere to be seen and I do not want to use the disavow tool. Is there a way I can use code to our htaccess file or any other method? Would appreciate anyone's immediate response. Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | artdivision0 -
Why are my URL's changing
My rankings suddenly dropped and when trying to understand why I realized that nearly all images in Google's cached version of my site were missing. In the actual site they appear but in the cached version they don't. I noticed that most of the images had a ?6b5830 at the end of the URL and these were the images that were not showing. I am hoping that I found the reason for the drop in rankings. Maybe since Google cannot see a lot of the content it decided not to rank it as well (particularly since it seems to happen on thousands of pages). This is a cached version of my site I am using the following plugins that might be causing it: Yoasts SEO plugin, W3 total cache. Does anyone know what is causing ?6b5830 to be added to the end of most of my URL's? Could this be the reason for the ranking drop? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | JillB20130 -
Changing the anchor text of a big amount of links at once is bad for SEO?
Hi there, Our service at fotograf.de is a shopsystem for professional photographers. The customers can build their own website with our tool including an onlineshop to sell their pictures. We have a lot of links from our customers linking to our homepage. The links come from subdomains of our domain and from external domains. We are now thinking about changing the anchor text of half of the links (round about 300.000 links). Do we have to fear a penalization of Google for changing so many anchor texts at once? Do we get better rankings if we choose a more optimized anchor text or does this have no effect because most of the links are from subdomains (each customer has its own subdomain) of our domain? Thanks for answering! Sebastian
Technical SEO | | Sebastian230 -
Changing Domain Registrars have an affect on rankings?
So, I just wanted to move my domain from GoDaddy to NameCheap. I am still thinking about the move as I am not sure what affect it will have on my rankings. Has anyone here done it before? Did you see any drop in rankings? Also, while I was at it - I was thinking maybe I can add WhoisGuard too. I am not too paranoid about people getting my info from WhoIs, but does having a private Whois have an affect on ranking?
Technical SEO | | uzair0 -
Web config redirects not working where a trailing slash is involved
I'm having real trouble with getting working redirects in place to use on a site we're re-launching with a modified url structure. Old URL: http://www.example.com/example_folder/ New URL: http://www.example.com/example-of-new-folder/ Now, where the old URL's have a trailing slash the web.config simply will not accept it. It says the URL can start with a slash, but not end with a slash. However, many of my URL's do end with a slash so I need a workaround. These are the rules I'm putting in place: <location path="example_folder/"></location> Thanks
Technical SEO | | AndrewAkesson0 -
Domain extension is a ranking factor? Does it change de value of my SEO
Im trying to find a good domain for my business, but a domain for my country ".com.br" with exact keyword is not available any more. I want to know if i buy a domain name with other extension like www.mykeyword.info or .biz is take bad effect in my SEO. Or it doesn't matter? If so, wich extension domain is good for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ex20