MMv4 KB
 
Minimizing website downtime during hosting account installation
  Last Edited - 08/18/2014 11:21am PDT
  Category Path - Shopping Cart Software Components > Administration Area > Hosting > FAQs & Tutorials
 
question
I want my shopping cart to be hosted under my existing domain name, but I already have an active website at that domain. What can I do to minimize any downtime when moving the domain from my old hosting provider to Modular Merchant?

In order to minimize any downtime when moving a domain with an active website, follow the steps below:
  1. In the Modular Merchant admin area, submit the Hosting Setup Checklist to begin the hosting account installation process.

    Modular Merchant will prepare a place on our servers (the hosting account) for your domain, and will install the shopping cart software there.

    Once the hosting account has been created and the shopping cart software has been installed, the hosting setup checklist will advance to Step 7. At this point, your domain is still hosted by the old hosting provider, and the existing website is not yet affected.
     
  2. Log into your old hosting provider account and download a copy of all of the active website's files (HTML files, images, etc).
     
  3. Connect to the new Modular Merchant hosting account via SFTP, and upload all of the website's files.
     
  4. In the control panel that the domain is registered through (such as GoDaddy), update the DNS settings. Detailed information is provided in Step 7 of the hosting setup checklist, which is located in the Modular Merchant admin area at [Hosting > Hosting Setup Checklist].
     
  5. After updating the DNS settings in the domain control panel, update the hosting setup checklist in the Modular Merchant admin area: click the I have updated my DNS settings button at Step 7 of the hosting setup checklist.

    As the DNS change propagates through the internet, visitors will be directed to the website at its new home on the Modular Merchant server. Since the website content was uploaded to the Modular Merchant server before the domain's DNS was updated, the website should experience minimal downtime.
Powered by ModularKB