How I migrated away from WebHost4Life
If WebHost4Life has migrated your website to their new hosting platform, you are probably at your wits end in dealing with the problems created by the migration process. Advertised as a better platform than the old one, you are now dealing with email problems, database problems, missing file issues, missing subdomains and the list goes on and on. In other words, the new platform is a lot worse than the old one… and trying to get competent support from WebHost4Life is a huge waste of time.
So what are you going to do about it?
If you are ever going to escape from the misery and angst that they are putting you through, you are going to have to bite the bullet and just let them go… yes, you are going to have to migrate away from WebHost4Life and find another website hosting company.
Now wait a minute… don’t run straight to your telephone and call WebHost4Life to cancel your account… that would be a very big mistake. You will need to do some careful and detailed planning before you cancel your WebHost4Life account.
Here is a link to an article on why I migrated away from WebHost4Life and here are the steps I took to migrate away from WebHost4Life:
1. Find a new website hosting company.
Sounds easy… but I needed a hosting company that:
- provides windows hosting
- provides support for SQL Server Express databases
- provides support for MS Access databases
- provides support for MySQL databases
- provides support for a WordPress blog
I probably spent 8 to 10 hours looking for a hosting company that could support the needs of my website… and after looking at the pros and cons of several companies, I decided to see if godaddy.com could support my website.
2. Determine if your website will work at the new hosting company.
I purchased a new domain name at godaddy.com and their one year Windows Deluxe hosting package at $6.99 a month. Why did I purchase a new domain name? I had to know if my website was going to perform properly at GoDaddy before I officially transferred my hosting account to them.
Two or three days of testing my website at GoDaddy convinced me to go ahead with the transfer.
The only thing I had an issue with was that GoDaddy does not support SQL Server Express… and I was using a SQL Server Express database to hold my site’s membership information… allowing site visitors to join my website to see member-only content. GoDaddy does support SQL Server, just not the Express version… and since I could use SQL Server to handle my membership information, I didn’t need to use the Express version of SQL Server.
If your website uses SQL Server Express databases, GoDaddy may not be the hosting company for you.
3. Make sure that you have backup copies of all data on your website.
This includes all of your databases, aspx files, html files, etc.
4. Transfer your domain to the new hosting company and purchase a hosting plan.
The official transfer of your website will probably take 5 to 7 days to complete… in the meantime, start uploading all of your website content to your new hosting company’s servers. GoDaddy (and I assume other host companies do this as well) provided me with an address (something like http://preview.mydomainname.com) so that I could have my website tested and ready to go when the transfer was completed.
5. Cancel your hosting account with WebHost4Life.
Only do this when you are certain that the transfer to your new hosting company has been completed.
6. Cancel the hosting account that you setup for testing purposes.
This is the testing domain and account that you set up with your new hosting company in Step #2 above and you shouldn’t need it anymore… yes, you are stuck with the testing domain name that you purchased, but you can let it expire in one year.
Conclusion:
Life is good again… no more website angst and misery… you have migrated to freedom!
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Can you, please, give more information on what is the exact procedure of transfering your domain to the new hosting company? Do I need to contact support or it is an option in the admin panel?