My client has a website with a website builder (templates) company - this includes the domain name and hosting.
I now want to get a new hosting, so that I can redesign the site. I also want to keep the current domain.
If I decide to move the domain to a different registrar, I probably need to contact the current company to update the domain status (make available for transfer) - is it possible that they would not want to do this ?
In case the domain name stays with them, they need to change the nameservers, to point to the new hosting. Correct?
With either one of the above options, all SEO juice and content of the website would be intact, right?
There is a second option - which I find easier. Registering a completely new domain.
However, in this case I would need to perform a 301 redirect to preserve the rankings. In this case, where I don’t have access to the current site back-end config, what would be the best way to do this ?
Thanks for your help. I’ve done these things a long time ago so I want to make sure I have all pieces of the puzzle in place, before I actually do anything.
This is the steps I had to take to transfer my website.
Contact the new host to see what I needed.
ZIP up the cpanel so they could move it to their hosting platform (e.g. everything saves.)
Unlock the domain so it could be transferred.
Send a request to the new host asking for the transfer.
Update the nameservers to the new ones so that the site is automatically good still. You can edit files from that new cpanel once uploaded.
They’ll send a document which you need to sign electronically (for me).
It’ll take a few days from there for the hosting to OFFICIALLY move, but that was my experience. SEO juice / content will not be affected since hte website URL / content is all the same. You might have a bit of downtime depending on how this goes, but I didn’t have any downtime.
That’s exactly my thinking.
Thanks for your response. I guess the main issue here is that I am completely restricted from the site administration. It would all need to go via the company.
I’d go through them as well since they can help walk you through it and you might miss stuff otherwise. I had switched from bluehost and never had any issues switching from them. You hopefully won’t have any issues.