Moving to another provider is a personal choice, and whilst I’m writing this guide to help you move to VentraIP because it’s one I have experience with, you can instead choose to move to any other provider.
VentraIP is the sister company to Synergy Wholesale (which is who I purchase bulk hosting from). It means minimal effort and time to move your hosting over to a self managed account. Before I moved to their wholesaler services, I hosted all my personal sites with VentraIP and have experienced their services for over 14 years so am confident you will be happy with the website uptime and speed. They are an Australian business, and their support team and date centres are also located in Australia.
Please be aware of the changes once you terminate your services with Dahlia Creative, you will need to either self manage or contract another website or IT specialist to do these things:
- Transfer your domain name
- Transfer your hosting
- Make your own changes to content or layout
- Update your wordpress plugins regularly, we do them weekly.
- Setup or confirm changes to your email settings
- Apply a SSL certificate
- Backup your website data
- All tech support
Now that I’ve explained all that, please follow the steps below to move your hosting over to VentraIP and terminate your services with Dahlia Creative. You may not have to transfer the domain if you have it with another provider currently. You will be emailed the domain password if you need to transfer the domain and the cpanel username/password if you need to transfer the hosting.
Transfer Hosting
To start the domain transfer process with VentraIP, go to Hosting and then Business Hosting. Using my refer a friend link, you will get a $50 credit towards your new account after 60 days.
How long does it take? The migration can take 24-48 hours, depending on VentraIPs schedule. They will give you a more accurate timeframe when you start the process and you will be emailed when it is completed. You will need your domain name and the cpanel username/password to complete the migration.
Will my site go down during the transfer? Migrating your hosting over makes a copy of the current website onto your new hosting account but it doesn’t affect your live website yet.
How much does it cost? VentraIP have a number of different plans you can choose from. The entry level business hosting would suit most of my clients. They have a no-contract monthly plan, or a yearly plan if you prefer. They normally offer a great first purchase deal which can put more pennies in your pocket compared to managed hosting if you have the skills or patience to DIY your website maintenance.
Transfer Domain Name
To start the domain transfer process with VentraIP, go to Domain Names and then Domain Transfer. You will sign up for an account, or log into a current account if you signed up for one above.
How long does it take? It can take 24 – 48 hours. You will get an email once it has been completed. You will need your domain password.
Will my site go down during the transfer? Transferring the domain name will not affect your website, only who you are paying for it. The settings will transfer over with it. You will need the domain password, which I will email to you.
How much does it cost? Depending on when your domain name expires, there may be no cost to do this. If it is close to expiry, you will renew the domain name at the same time and a domain renewal fee will be charged. This would be similar to the domain renewal fee that you currently pay me. So it won’t be too much different to paying your yearly renewals that I send out. Otherwise there is no cost.
Change the Domain Nameservers
You need to point your domain to your new hosting account. If you don’t complete this step, your domain is still pointing to my server and it will mean more costs with me or downtime for your website.
You will need to use the nameservers listed in your hosting settings and enter those in the nameservers section of your domain settings. If you have moved your domain name to VentraIP as above, in VIPcontrol you go to My Services -> Domain Management -> DNS -> VentraIP tab. This will make the domain point to your VentraIP hosting account.
If you are using another domain provider, you will need to navigate through their menus to find the DNS or Nameservers settings, or consider using their help section to get more guidance.
How long does it take? Domain names can take 24 hours to completely update. During this process the domain name can point to both the old server and the new server and bounce between the 2 accounts multiple times. Do not make any edits to your website while this process is completing as you might be editing the old one or the new one and may need to redo the changes when the update fully completes.
How much does it cost? It should be no cost. If you plan accordingly, you will have the new hosting account ready and have the migration already completed a day or 2 before changing the nameservers. However if you leave it till the last moment you will need to continue with more hosting with me or deal with the downtime for the day or two while the domain updates. I charge monthly, but do offer a half month service to help complete the transfer process efficiently.