Tag Archives: SEM

How to Move Your Website without Losing SEO Rankings: A Records, 301′s and Not Taking BS From Your Designer

Recently in a twitter conversation with @Rocktique and @Own_Your_Future. It was brought to my attention that her website was being transfered between hosts, and that during this time there is a 30 day wait period…in which her site would be offline…WHAT?! This is ludicrous!

As someone who specializes in SEO, and especially knows the importance and sensitivity of domain transfers, hell, the sensitivity when changing your site toward a new structure, file extension per page, and the catastrophe that most people turn this into…I was appalled. Here goes another unmitigated disaster…sigh.

I will explain this in laymens terms, as much as I can.

Firstly, when you have 2 hosts, and you want to move from Host 1 to Host 2 there is this one simple little domain setting known as the “A”record. The “A” record tells the world what IP Address (I.E. 74.125.229.52) your website, or a subdomain of that website is actually hosted/located. Servers don’t care what your website is called. Your browser goes through what is called DNS (Dynamic Naming System) lookup before connecting to a site. The name is purely cosmetic.

So, why is the “A” record important? Because you can have 2 websites setup at the same time with the SAME domain name but on different servers…where a user lands is pretty much up to what the “A” record points to.

In fact, you can spoof your real website with another locally by changing whats known as your HOSTS file (in windows: c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts) by just typing in the domain name, a space, and the IP Address. (I.E: “74.125.229.53 google.com”).

Right, so waiting period…what waiting period? If both of your hosts are active, new and old, you can work on both without any interruption.

You 3 different choices when it comes to moving your site over.

You can:

1. Change DNS Naming Servers from Host 1 to Host 2.
2. Change Domain Registrar
3. Change the A Records on Host 1.
4. Use a 3rd Party as your DNS and change the A Records.

No matter what you do, settings should be preserved, and as soon as they switch, you will just see the new website instead of the old one. The only time something could go wrong is when you change DNS Naming Servers from one to the other and haven’t prepared the DNS entries on the new server, they should be exactly the same as before, or should reflect the IP Address of the new site. Also, when switching domain registrar, make sure that you check off that current DNS Settings should remain the same, that way everything will move smoothly, otherwise you will have a couple hours downtime as the world servers propagate your new IP Address and DNS Settings.

Ok so the point all this is, there is no reason your website should go down for 30 days unless you had a catastrophic loss of data, of which you would then be making a new website.

Regarding 301′s, if you are making a new site with a new structure, and not using 301′s, you are hurting your rankings. I will save that for another blog!!

SMX East, I’m Attending, Are You?

I missed the SMX East conference last year, so I am excited to go this year.  I am going on my own budget so money will be tight, I can only afford the Free pass to the expo itself. It gives limited Access, but at least I’ll be able to show my face among the various SEO Vendors.

I’d also like to be able to attend the SEOMoz conference, but there is no free pass and the minimum ticket cost is $649. At the moment it’s just not feasible. Not to mention it’s in Seattle, so the flight ticket cost is even more than to NYC.  It also will most likely be sold out. I asked SEOmoz if they could hook me up, sadly no. Oh Well. On to SMX East!

The reasons I am going to SMX East are:

Attend more than 30 presentations in the SMX Theater

I really would like to see the latest cutting edge info on search. I’ve heard a bit about these presentations and they always have something to take away. I also wouldnt mind twittercasting events at SMX. I remember following SMX when it was going on last year. It was fun enough just to hear what was going on. I plan to sit back and soak up the knowledge here.

Meet the market-defining vendors

I’d really like to get to know the competi…err, the big players out there. I am hoping to find many people I can actually physically talk with that know more about search than I do. In Miami, I hear a lot, some people talk about SEO and search as if they know what it really is, what it really means. They think its easy, cheap…something you throw a couple bucks at and it takes off on its own…I beg to differ, especially for competitive markets.

I have yet to meet anyone who is as involved online as I am, except maybe my evolving Social Media prodigy Alyssa Jones aka FlirtyKumquat. She is doing great with social media, though still not as technically minded as I…she’s getting there. I am hoping to meet many new people in the field that I can learn from and establish long lasting relationships.

Attend a conference session with your Session Sampler

I am really looking forward to testing out one of these sessions, it may inspire me to save up enough money to register for multiple pay for sessions next year.

Attend the keynotes

Keynotes are always important. This is the bulk of the reason to go to SMX, to hear first hand whats happening in SEM, and then chat about it afterwards with experts and professionals in the field.

Network with speakers, conference attendees and vendors

Social networking is at its best when its face to face. I can’t imagine how many Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare accounts I am going to connect with just by meeting different people face to face.  I’ll be checking in at every booth, making sure my name is up there.

See you at SMX! I Hope to learn a lot of new names and faces!!!