When you move your website to a new host, it’s kind of like moving house. You’ve got everything packed up, the new home is prepared and now all you have to do is tell everyone your new address. In all other situations, “everyone” means all of the Internet, and if you’re not at your new address when they arrive, some visit your old one and leave, while others can’t find you at any address.
The good news? Switching to a new web hosting in Kenya doesn’t need to be a hassle with downtime. Just requires a little planning, a bit of patience, and understanding what really goes on behind the scenes when updating those settings.
Your domain name is actually a friendly name and a set of numbers (IP address) which tells the internet where your website exists. As you register a domain, you will be provided control over a thing called nameservers, whether you register a domain in Kenya or anywhere else in the world. The nameservers are like a forwarding address for the internet, and they tell your visitors’ browsers which server to get your website from.
When switching hosts, the domain’s nameservers are changed, or perhaps even just the domain’s DNS records, to point to the new host, rather than the old host. Simple in theory. What makes things tricky though is that this change doesn’t occur as a one-size-fits-all. It gradually propagates across the internet over time, and after all, that’s where downtime gets in, if you’re not careful.
Imagine that the post office updates your address. Some mail services make updates to their records in mere minutes. Others are still delivering to your old address days later, and have not checked for any updates. Here, some of the visitors will be brought to your new host and some to the old one depending on which “post office” your internet provider uses.
This is perfectly normal and is why it is bad practice to rush your domain migration or worse yet, to close your old host as soon as you switch to the new one.
The one tip that could make any migration easy is the simple one of not demolishing your old house until everyone has moved into the new one. Don’t deactivate an old hosting plan until you have allowed the nameserver change to take effect for at least 24 to 48 hours. During this overlapping time, your website will load, regardless of which “address” the visitor’s browser is still using.
There’s one more quiet hero in all of this: TTL, Time to Live. This is a value that you can set on your DNS records that will dictate how long the internet will store the previous information before it searches for it again. Set your TTL to a lower value a couple of days ahead of time in the time of your migration. This is because it instructs the internet to look for updates more often, so that when you do switch the switch, propagation takes place in a much shorter time frame, sometimes within an hour instead of a day or two.
The migration pitfall even savvy business owners fall into is not realizing that email utilizes different DNS records (MX) from the website. While the website might be running perfectly, and you may be enjoying the migration process, you could find yourself with a gorgeous site and a completely upended email. When retiring the old host, always test your MX records to ensure that they are correct on the new host.
Don’t turn all the switches on at the same time; go through them one at a time. Do this first by fully installing your site on the new host and using a temporary preview link or your hosts file to test your site with a temporary domain. If you’re sure all is in order, decrease your DNS TTL a couple of days in advance of the move. Then change the nameservers or DNS records to point to the new host and maintain the old hosting account for several days as a precautionary measure and then, after you’ve ensured that everything (website, email) is running smoothly on the new side, shut down the old hosting account.
An incorrectly completed domain transfer isn’t only about a disconvenient error page. It means lost sales, bounced customer emails and a lost of trust you’ve worked so hard to earn. If your business uses its website every single day, then a couple of hours of downtime could mean a real measurable loss for you.
We do migrations for our clients at HostJaer, and we’re familiar with the nitty-gritty details that will make or break the transition, such as how to set up TTL timing, checking MX records, and so on. We also provide free domains in Kenya in select domain packages, and if you are starting a whole new business, our domain packages ensure that your domain is up and running properly from the start, thus preventing future headaches.
Hosting changes don’t need to be daunting. The domain transfer process can be completed without your site visitors even knowing what happened in the event that you take the necessary steps (and current a bit of overlap period between your old and new domain) and pay enough attention to your website and email records. Moving with HostJaer is best option if you do not want to make all the technicalities by yourself because we are always here to handle the technical part for you.
