How to Move Your Website to Another Web Host

The choice of the provider on which your website will reside is quite important. You can place a site on your personal computer or in a public cloud, but the best solution will be a hosting provider — a service provider for hosting sites or servers. The benefits are big, because, by placing the site in your PC, you will have to independently provide:

• server configuration (web, MySQL / MsSql / Postgre)
• server support (upgrade, monitoring status of services, etc.)
• permanent connection to the Internet and the power grid
• payment for renting a "white" IP address
• virus protection and code injection
• and you need good skills in setting up NIX-like systems.

In general, you will not save money, just get an additional headache. You will be forced to seek out specialists to help you set it all up and get it to work. So, the conclusion is obvious — place your site with a hosting company that will do everything for you.

Choosing a hosting provider and package type (a set of services provided at a specific price) is one of the important aspects of your site — it affects site speed, overall performance and success. Based on the above, we strongly recommend hosting the site in hosting companies. It is important to know how to choose the best Drupal hosting. But what if you have already chosen one, and start noticing that it doesn’t do what you need? How do you know if its normal and should be this way? What are the main signs of bad hosting provider? What symptoms hint that it is worth move your website to another web host, before it's too late? Let's find out right now.

The main signs that you’d better move your website to another web host:

• Regular downtimes

There is no sense in having a site that is unreachable for users. The more often, and the longer that your site is down, the more you loose. You can use downtime & uptime monitoring tools to detect those time periods and react on them. However, the occurrence of downtime partially depends on hosting provider. Surely, no host can guarantee 100% uptime, but they should be able to provide up to 99.0-99.9%. So, if you experience downtime situations occurring too frequently, it’s a warning sign. It’s especially not okey if downtimes are not associated with traffic spikes, like in seasonal retail. If it happens too often, it’s time for your site to move away.

• Bad scale up during traffic spikes

A friend in need is a friend in deed. Sudden spikes in traffic cause a risk for your site crashing and require additional attention. Can your host expand the capacity of your web resource automatically, or does it waits for you to purchase an upgrade? Can it scale up and down according to your site needs? You have a right to demand of your host that your site should be nearly always accessible. If your host can’t manage with massive traffic spikes, and this results in tremendous losses that are not handled by its support, then it’s better to switch.

• Inconceivable slow load speed

Even two-second delay provokes more than 20% of online shoppers to leave their carts without completing a purchase. Furthermore, your page load speed influences not only visitors, but search engines, too. If your site is taking too long to load, the reasons could be numerous. It could be heavy images, code density, excessive redirects, too many plugins or the host. If you have the latest version of Drupal and have recently optimized other things on your site but it is still slow, then it is probably your host.

Cheap web hosts commonly give a shared web server, where countless sites share space and resources with each other. These conditions cause a queue. Sites stand in line and wait for their turn. So, if your server generates a response that too long and you don’t want to wait, just switch to better option.

• No support for the latest PHP version

The latest version of PHP — PHP 7 is fully tested with Drupal 8, the latest version of Drupal — brings much more enhanced performance. If you care about the update to the latest version and strive for constant improvements, your host should be be ready to meet your needs. If your host can’t provide proper support for PHP 7, it shouldn’t keep you with PHP 6 or 5. It’s better to find another host that is just as progressive as you.

• Lack of customer support

A good host should have an issue tracking system (for example, we have Service Drudesk) and resolve problems quickly and painlessly. If you have to wait a week for a response to your request or email, something is wrong. Choose a hosting provider that won’t ignore you and will be truly concerned.

• Poor security

Imagining your website being hacked must be a nightmare for you. With all your vital files damaged, missing, compromised or gone public, you can lose a great deal. You should ask yourself: are you protected enough from cyberthreats? What measures is your host taking to keep you safe? Is backup provided? Most hosts give this service for a separate fee, and its setting lies strictly on your shoulders. Will your data be easily restored in the case of a hacker attack or virus?

Conclusion

Of course, any changes mean a risk. However, as the saying goes, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” or “no risk, no reward.” Once you find a hosting provider that truly cares about your web resource and that you truly adore, you’ll regret having waited so long.

Our company, Drudesk, not only provides high-quality services for hosting of your sites, but also helps to Drupal maintenance or create a new site. The coherent work of our programmers, together with the hosting support team, will allow you to solve your issues in the most optimal way.