Transfer A Site Successfully
Marissa Mayer may not be knocking on your door (yet), but the time may come when you want to sell your cheap hosting website. Or, hopefully, someone loves your site so much that they want to buy it from you. The problem isn't settling the price of your site or signing the paperwork. There are other issues at hand that you will want to know about prior to making that final transaction.
Some Downtime
When selling your site, you will want to minimize downtime as much as possible. This might be tough. To do this via WordPress, follow these steps:
1. Change the DNS records by:
- Using cPanel created an add-on domain.
- Backup the database – can't be stressed enough!
- Create a clean installation by installing WordPress on the new host.
- Switch the old WP-content folder from the old site to the new one.
- Restore the database with phpMyAdmin
- Wait…it should take a few hours for the switch to happen.
Once the changes have been implemented, you should be able to view the site on the new server.
Other Considerations
It's also really important to know who you are selling your site to. You'll want to find out what company that person currently uses as a host, and what that person's domain register is (this makes transitioning a lot simpler). It also pays to make sure all site legalities are in a row before you close up shop.
Ultimately, your goal is to make a site swap with zero, or little, downtime for site readers. This isn't an impossible task, and it's one that you should really strive for, since interrupting service can be bothersome for some avid readers (and some people may not go back to your site after seeing that ‘site down' sign).
Some Dollar Sense
Before you go through any transfer steps, make sure that you have the money for your domain upfront. I will caution against using a site like PayPal to transfer a domain. Why? PayPal payments can be reversed, and this could cause a whole lot of problems if you've already gone through the process of transferring your site.
Transfer A Site Successfully: A Word About Transferring Blogs
If you are looking to sell a blog, you may not be able to complete this kind of transaction. Sites like Blogger (or other free sites) don't allow you to sell a blog through the site. However, you can transfer the rights to blog content/administration with success. This is a small difference, but it's one worth noting.
Have you transferred a site? Have anything to add to these tips?
Photo Courtesy of Eric Fischer via Flickr Creative Commons
