So; You would like us to host your website,
and you already own your domain name?
No problem.
You have a few options, depending on your set up and your requirements.
Do you want to:
(a) leave your domain name (and emails) all where they are and working as currently, but we just look after the website and website hosting?
(b) move the whole shooting match (domain name and emails) over to us, along with the website hosting.
Firstly, to be able to do either, you (or we) need access to the control panel where this domain name is held. If you’re not sure where it is currently, you can search on your domain name here. It might be someone like GoDaddy, 123-Reg, 1and1. SOmeone will be invoicing you each year for your domain name. What we need to do next, depends on your answer to the question above.
Let’s deal with the easiest option first;
(a) We can leave all the email bits alone, leave all that working exactly as it currently is without making any settings changes required to emails. We can just “point the relevant DNS records” that control the website that’s viewed, to our nice shiny new website (or even holding page) sat on our cloud servers. We can either jump in and make those (“DNS Record”) changes for you, or give you some instructions as to what you need to do. Job done. Minimal disruption. You’re away.
Alternatively, if you want to move the whole job lot over to be in our control, here’s what you need to know:
(b) If you want to move the domain name(s), and email accounts (running off the “@yourdomanname.com” that we’re talking about moving) the very first thing we need to do is make sure your emails are backed up, locally. This ensures when we flick the switch, you don’t lose your existing emails. You might not be too chuffed if that happened. We’d recommend copying across to a local archive folder in your mail client/program like Outlook or mac mail. If happy to do so, you can googler how to do that, if in any doubt, we’d recommend getting an IT Support Person, to help you with this – we can recommend a few we work with to jump on your computer remotely if needs be, and make sure this is all done correctly.
If we can just repeat – making sure your emails are backed up locally and archived, so you keep them is your responsibility – we’re sorry, but we can’t be held responsible for any loss of emails during a transfer process.
Back in the day, “POP” mailboxes used to be the most commonly set up account, these pull down a copy of your email to your computer locally. Here, you should be all good, your emails are stored locally. If when you delete things off your computer and it’s still there on your phone, you probably set up “POP”.
With the increase of everyone checking their mails on smartphones etc, “IMAP” is the more popular way to go. This effectively enables your device to just view the same single copy of an email on the servers. If you delete something off one device and it gets rid of them elsewhere, you probably set up “IMAP”
If you are happy emails are all backed up, or there are none to worry about, we’re good to move onto the final step which depends if it’s a domain name ending in “.uk” or a non uk specific one, such as a .com or .org.
- For a .uk, we can let you know our “IPS TAG” (Internet Provider Security tag) and in your existing control panel, when that’s changed, it’s within our control to pull across into our control panel whenever we want to. There typically isn’t a charge to pull across .uk domain names.
- For .com, .org, or any others like that, it’s a different process. The domain name needs to be Unlocked where it’s currently sat, then you’ll get an “Auth Code”, which can be passed to us, to enable us to transfer in. Here, there is usually a cost imposed upon us for the transfer, the same as buying a brand new domain name.
Once either you, or we, have control of the domain name, and we can get access to the DNS settings, we can make the necessary changes to get your shiny new website showing to the world!
