How to Transfer Domain Name with Minimum Downtime?

Follow the steps given below to get your domain name transferred with ease-

1. Sign up with a new web hosting and at the same time, don’t cancel your old existing hosting account. Make sure that you don’t let your hosting provider get aware that you will be canceling the services
2. You have the new existing account details with the old host server’s website running. The migration of website data initiated from the old host to the new host using the older FTP and getting files downloaded. Once this done, the new host’s connection needs to established, and the files have to be uploaded.
3. You should also backup all databases present on the old host, and then backup files are uploaded using FTP to the new web host. The process of database restoration can be done using phpMyAdmin of cPanel or SSH. The old host mails are archived by creating connections of each email address using POP3. Following this approach will get the older emails downloaded to your local machine. The new host will now receive new emails, though the older mails are already downloaded on the local system.
4. In case you are using cPanel as the hosting control panel for both- new and old, then the older emails can be transferred by the new host.
5. With a copy of the hosting account present on both hosting accounts, the time has to come to change the DNS of the domain
6. After confirming the files on both the hosting accounts. You can update the Name servers given by the new host in the domain control panel
7. Once the DNS change has been done, it takes nearly 48 hours for the website to load the new hosting server. During this time, there is going to be a DNS propagation of the website. And it would be loading on a random note from the old/new hosting server
8. After 48 hours, the DNS gets updated and becomes completely functional, with the new host’s website loading. Now you can contact the old host and cancel your plan.

Important Note

In order to reduce the time taken for propagation and once website content is transferred. make sure to create an a record in the previous DNS. This helps redirect all the visitors to the new web server. And is much quicker than the time required for propagating the Name servers. For email delivery to new servers, it is better to make an MX record. And by doing so, all the waiting time for email delivery during the propagation phase gets eliminated. It is recommended to have MX records and A records pointing to a new server. Once this is done, the Name servers can be changed accordingly.