I move sites a few times a year and every time it feels like the first time, to quote Foreigner. I really like this guy’s tutorial using Backup Buddy – it’s nice and clear.

I’m writing this to remind myself more than anything else.

In my latest site move because of that i-Page fiasco, I followed this guys instructions but had not yet moved the Name Servers to the new host. You never know how long that is going to take, but I figure by the time I get the files in place then with a little luck, the new servers will point to those files. It’s never that simple, and not documented much, what can possibly go wrong.

So now I have all the files uploaded and installed but it’s just at a hosting account, nothing is pointing there yet. I try the IP address provided in the domain info in the control panel, but it’s not helping me much. Turns out there’s a funny name they make up randomly and you have to put that followed by a dot before the IP address, then it works.

So now I want to point the name servers to this newly hatched hosting area, and what happens? Everything is broken! I suspected it might have something to do with the .htaccess file, which of course is invisible unless you know how to tell it not to be. So once again I get on with tech support and they remove part of the path telling the site to be one level up from where it is now (at the root) and bingo, everything is in place.

Phew! What are the chances I’ll remember all these undocumented steps next time?