If you already have a website hosted with a company, but you are wishing to change hosting companies, switching to a different web host is often relatively easy and painless, with little downtime on your website.
Firstly, you will need to sign up with your new desired web hosting company and chose the package that most suits your needs. If you are hoping to keep the same domain name, then you will need to get in contact with the registrar that you registered the domain name with.
A registrar is a company that holds the domain name for you, this is often combined with a web hosting company, so you may find that you will have to get in contact with your previous web hosts in order to modify the domain name.
Before you start modifying your domain name, you will, of course, have to upload your website and files to the new web host. This process is often very similar with all web hosting companies, using a protocol known as FTP. Once you’ve uploaded your site to your new hosts, you are ready to point the domain name to them as well.
Once you have access to the settings for your domain name, you will have to modify the DNS records in order for the name to point to your new web hosting company. All web hosting companies should provide you with easy to follow instructions in order for you to do this.
You will then have to wait for the DNS records to populate throughout the internet, which can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 48 hours.
