Moving Server Advice - High Traffic Site

k021 · 05-04-05

We need to move 2 sites from one dedicated server to another. I'm a bit concerned about affect in Google rankings. These sites get 10k+ uniques a day and have enjoyed 1000s of Top 3 rankings for 2 years plus.

Here are the options:

1) Buy new dedicated server with same hosting company. They are able to move same IP address across

2) Same as 1) but it might not be possible for them to move same IP across

3) Currently sites are on Windows server. I would prefer to use Apache server. Move sites to dedicated Apache server with completely different host and IP. This my first choice but involves the most upheaval.

In all instances the server will definitely remain located in UK and the sites will be fully set up and tested on new server before changing DNS.

I've heard some horror stories and I am very apprehensive. Has anyone any experience of this?

Rich · 05-04-05

I haven't had any problems with losing rankings due to moving sites to a new server in the past, though it isn't something that I've done that much of.

I think the one possible issue is that there are reports that google caches DNS data for while and the problems arise when it visits the old server and the site is gone.

So I would: -
Set up the site on the new server and test it alot!
Change the DNS to point to the new server.
Don't touch the old server until it stops logging any traffic or at least make sure the bots are visiting the new server.

k021 · 05-04-05

Thanks Rich, that's a very good point about leaving old version of site on old server. That is easy for us to do.

Do you believe we could even do 3) and move to totally different hosting company with little adverse affects?

Keir

linktastic · 05-04-05

I work for one of the UK's major business and hosting ISP's, what I would suggest is to create the new server and test it as much as possible (then test it a bit more) have the server hosted where ever you like and then change the DNS to point to the new server, leave the old server in place until you see fit that all traffic/bots are landing on the new server then remove old server, this way you will have no adverse effects moving hosting companies as well.

oh and Good Luck

Aquanuke · 05-04-05

IP and datacentre change shouldnt make any effect on your SERPS. Unless you move it to a different country. Run some trace routes on your datacentres to see where they are and how good their pings are.

Green2K · 05-04-05

I've moved sites to different IP's with no problems on Google. As people have said, leave the site running on old IP until you see GoogleBot crawling on new one.

In my experience though, it takes less than 24hrs now for it to notice the change. YMMV.

Good luck.

Green2K.

Stress Head · 05-04-05

Just out of curiosity, how would you do this if you were using a database driven site?

The thought being that if for example you were a merchant, all your orders etc would be in the database.

Any visitors to the old site would be using the old database and those going to the new site the new database. Result, a mess I would have thought ?

Aquanuke · 05-04-05

Best way would be to cluster a server.

That way many servers share the same DNS and nameservers. So you would just switch over the database to the server your keeping and unplug the server thats being made redundant.

Thats how it would work on a server farm ie 2000 sites shared over 20 servers running the same DNS on each. You can also cluster between different datacentres.

Brains · 05-04-05

Moved No.1 ranking travel site and had no effect.

BRAINS

Aquanuke · 05-04-05

k021, if you did want to retain the same nameservers your using now then you would cluster another server. If you get another server without clustering then you cant asign your current nameservers elsewhere.

Depends how important it is to you to keep your nameservers. But nameservers TLD's might also effect your SERPS. I changed a NS from .com to .co.uk while back which did mess up some of my SERPS.

k021 · 06-04-05

Aquanuke, not sure what you mean about keeping same nameservers. I don't think they would change in our case. At present the nameserver is the domain registrars and we just change the DNS to point to IP address the site is on.

Aquanuke · 06-04-05

Your current ns is used for server 1 if you remove that ns record to then assign it to server 2 then server 1 will fail. As it will no longer have the ns record. You need that ns record on server 1 untill all domains on server1 propagate over to server 2.

So the only way around it is to use another pair of ns record on server 2 or cluster server 1 and server 2 to use identical ns records untill everythings propagated.