Moving from GoDaddy to Hostgator questions :)

[orangehippos]

Hello everyone!

I am very impressed with the professionalism and the plethora of positive reviews and robust support from hostgator and am changing from GoDaddy to you guys. I was just curious about changing over to hostgator as I originally purchased everything from GoDaddy. I guess I'm a noobie here and any advice would be great!

I purchased my domain name from Godaddy and am not sure on how to transfer it over to the hosting on HostGator. I then went and did their free domain hosting and found they put an annoying little ad banner at the top, and saw their price on hosting was rather obnoxious. I don't really need to transfer any of the hosted data to the HostGator servers, but I guess I'm just confused at how to transfer the domain name over, then do a clean install of Joomla with HostGator.

Just a simple kick in the right direction would be great!

[GvilleRick]

You don't have to transfer the registration over at all. You only have to change the nameservers to the ones HG will provide once your account is set up. I have several domains registered with GoDaddy and host on my dedicated server.

Once you purchase a hosting account here you will receive an email with information on how to access the account and the nameservers you should use. You would then go into your domain management at GoDaddy and edit the nameservers to the ones from that email. It takes 24-48 hours for the changes to propagate so that your domain will point here. Before that, you can use the IP address to access the account and transfer files over.

[alemcherry]

Godaddy is good for domain names and HG for hosting. You are moving in right direction.

As mentioned above, just changing the nameservers is enough. Even moving your site to HG is possible, you should get it done free of cost if you contact support.

[cdnbride]

So hello to all from another newbie who came across this post while looking for similar information.

I have two domains at Godaddy that I would like to point to my site that I've been building here on HG. First off I changed the nameserver info correctly on one of my domains and when I go to my web address it goes to the Hostgator front end instead of my actual site.

Second, I would like for my other domain to point to the same site but am not quite sure how to make that work, do I just change the nameserver info for that domain as well?

Any help would be appreciated.... thanks in advance!

Cdnbride

[striddy]

Originally Posted by cdnbride

when I go to my web address it goes to the Hostgator front end instead of my actual site.

Did you upload any files yet? And/or did you delete the existing index file?

Originally Posted by cdnbride

I would like for my other domain to point to the same site but am not quite sure how to make that work, do I just change the nameserver info for that domain as well?

Change the nameserver to the same one, then in cpanel, park domain2 on domain1.

[cdnbride]

Hi David, thanks for replying...
I have put over 4000 products into our cart and had a designer upload our site from buyitsellit after converting it to zencart for us. When i click on "online catalog" in zencart our site comes up in a new browser window but not when I go directly to our web address. I'm guessing that the designer has deleted the original index file in order to install our site. I will go over and park domain 2 now.
Lisa

[cdnbride]

Okay so I've parked my domain and went into Godaddy to make sure everything is good, now when I put in the addresses I get the Index thingy instead (to view please go here)

www.canadianbridalsuperstore.com

I would love it if somebody could give me some feedback on how to fix this.
Thanks
Cdnbride

[GvilleRick]

Your ecommerce script is installed in the store folder and there are no other files in your public_html folder. You would either need to install the zen-cart script directly in public_html so that it will load by default, create a page in public_html telling about your site, or add a redirect in public_html to redirect to http://www.canadianbridalsuperstore.com/store. If you search the forum for redirect there are a number of posts describing what is needed.

[cdnbride]

Omg that sounds really complicated. If I install the script in my public_html will I have to start all over with my products, custom template etc?
I am very green at all of this and am still learning most of how all of this works.
Thanks
Lisa

[GvilleRick]

Someone who knows more about Zen Cart may be able to help with what you would need to do. You would not have to reenter the items, it would likely just bee a matter of moving the files and changing settings in the admin section of the cart.

A less elegant solution is to have an index.html file to redirect folks to the /store folder. Something like the following should work:

<html>
<head>
<title>Canadian Bridal Superstore</title>
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="0;
URL=http://www.canadianbridalsuperstore.com/store/">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
</body>
</html>

From an SEO standpoint I believe it would be better to have the files in the public_html folder or add a permanent redirect in your .htaccess file.

[cdnbride]

I would really prefer just to have my files moved but if I can find myself a really nice splash page that adds to what I'm doing then it might be okay. Do you think that splash page will work?
And if I use the code that you gave me where would I put that?
I really appreciate your help, I am not one that likes to rely on others so this is very frustrating for me.
Talk Care
Cdnbride

[striddy]

Originally Posted by cdnbride

I would really prefer just to have my files moved but if I can find myself a really nice splash page that adds to what I'm doing then it might be okay. Do you think that splash page will work?

For a few reasons, don't use a splash page.

Easiest fix is to log in to cpanel > redirects > setup a redirect from / to /store.

If you get stuck submit a ticket to HG.

[cdnbride]

Okay thanks guys for all of your help, I'm glad I asked now.
Cheers

~Cdnbride~