With a little advanced planning, moving your domain to a new hosting company is a painless process. The approach outlined here will allow you to move any domain without downtime. The basic steps are:

# Set up your new webhosting account

# If needed, transfer your domain

# Change your domain's name servers

# Cancel your old hosting account
The first step is to set up a new webhosting account. Pick a host that has the features, support and cost that fit your budget. Follow their online signup process and set up the account.Make sure you upload all your files to the new site before going on. Step 1 can be completed in 1-24 hours.

The second step is to transfer your domain to a new registrar. I recomend this step IF your registrar and your hosting provider are the same company. Step 2 will take 24 hours wile the domain registries sort themselves out.

The third step is to change your name servers to the name servers of your new hosting provider. Simply log in to your domain registrar's control pannel and update the name servers to the ones provided to you by your new hosting company. This step will take the longest. If you want to be paranoid about it, wait atleast 48 hours before going to the next step. The longer you wait the better, but 72 hour should be safe enough.

Last but not least, don't forget to cancel your web hosting with your old internet provider.

Shawn is the owner of Tandac Enterprises and the Bed and Breakfast Connector.