Sunday, November 16, 2008

Transferring Ownership of the Web Site When You Sell It

Transferring Ownership Of The Web Site

There are multiple steps to transferring a web site although the total process only has to take a half hour, if you did it all yourself. But, your buyer may want to do some of the work themselves or you may want to opt to have them do it, depending on if they are knowledgeable enough to complete these tasks. If not, you can do it yourself, but even though the process itself may take about a half hour, the total propagation of the site from one server to another may take several days. That's because the Internet is such a large entity that it has to update several servers that point the site to the new home in order for it to finally be transferred. But, here we'll go over the steps you need to take to transfer a web site you sell in detail.

Push The Domain To The Buyer

You are going to have to first push the ownership of the domain name to the buyer. This is done by having the customer sign up to the same registrar in which you registered the name. This is accomplished by setting up a free account where you can push that domain name to the new owner. There is typically no charge for pushing a domain name from one owner to another on the same registration service.

Each registrar may have different ways to do this, so you will need to check the registrar's website to find out how to do it for your particular domain name registrar. After the domain name has transferred ownership, then your buyer has to set the name servers to point to the new web host they want to use. If they're going to continue to host with you, then they won't need to change the name servers and you're basically done.

Transferring A Site From One Host To Another

If you have an experienced buyer, you don't have to move the site yourself. You can just give them the FTP information they need to log into the server it's already on and thus they can copy the site over to another host. You might want to give them a time deadline to do this in so that they don't wait forever to finish the transaction. Ten days is a good time limit.

The Experienced Buyer

On the other hand, if you have an inexperienced website buyer or you just don't want to give access to the FTP information so that there can be no problems with the new customer screwing up the site before it's transferred, then you can offer to move it yourself.
Here are the steps you will need to follow to move the files from your host server to another distinct hosting provider:

1. Log in to your web site server using your FTP program.

2. Go to the public_html directory where you should have installed most of the WordPress files. If you didn't follow our instructions to do this, then you will have to go to the directory which you did pick to install those files.

3. You are going to want to download everything that is necessary to run the web site on another server. Copy all those files to a folder on your desktop and save it.

4. Don't delete any files, folders, database, or anything while doing this process. If you miss something, you can always come back and find it later instead of wondering what happened and not being able to recreate a working setup.

5. In the folder you just created on your desktop, create a subfolder. Label it aaa_database for the name.

Copy The Databases Too

Next, you want to make sure that any databases associated with your web site are also transferred onto the new host. This will be a process of backing up the databases to the subfolder you just created called aaa_database. Then, from there, you will have everything you need in one folder to be able to successfully move all the files without missing anything.

To copy the databases, you have to follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Cpanel area on the server that is currently hosting the site.

2. You will see an option or icon that says, "MySQL databases." You will need to review each of the databases listed to see if they are part of the web site you wish to transfer or not.

3. Review the WordPress database information for this web site and make sure that you at least copy this one to the subfolder. Make a note of the user that is assigned to each database you are copying to your subfolder. Make note of any other databases that also need to be copied and backed up that are associated with this web site and their associated user.

4. At the bottom of the page, you will see another option that reads, "PHP My Admin."

5. After you are in this area, you will see a listing of databases and just select the one that you already know are needed for this web site installation to work correctly.

6. Then, you will want to choose the "export" column and SELECT ALL.

7. Then, choose SQL.

8. You will want to choose the next option that says, "Save as File."

9. Click, "GO."

10. Then save it to the subfolder you've created within the WordPress main folder, which is named aaa_database.

11. If you have more than one database you have to copy to the folder, than just repeat steps 5 through 10.

The Big Move

While that may seem like many, many, steps, once you get the hang of this you will find it actually only takes a few minutes to complete. All this work is necessary to make sure that you have a full copy of the website still hosted while you have a full copy in one folder on your desktop so that you can easily move it.

One thing that you will notice as you are downloading the database files is that they all will have the same prefix, and that prefix is the username you logged in with. So, if you have gone to your Cpanel and logged into the MySQL area with the username NANCYM, then the databases associated with that account would start with a prefix of NANCYM and then an underscore and the name of the database file. So, it would look something like NANCYM_mydatabasename.

Of course, just because you chose the username NANCYM for your account doesn't mean your buyer did too. In all likelihood, you can expect them to have a different username. You will need to know what that is so that you can rename all of the database names to change the prefix to the new username that is associated with your buyers Cpanel account and MySQL databases. Then, you will need to make sure that you import those databases into the area with that username.

Here are the steps to ensure that you will have harmony between the new customer account and the old databases when you move the information over, after you've already renamed the prefixes:

1. Ask your customer for the username and password for the Cpanel of their new hosting site.

2. Log into the customer's Cpanel to continue the process.

3. Get into their MySQL databases area.

4. You are going to want to create a database in their MySQL area that has exactly the same database name as the one on your hosting server.

5. You will also want to create the same database users and passwords that were available to your old database that was hosted on your site.

6. After you've created the user(s), you still need to attach the user(s) to the database with the exact same privileges as what they had on your hosting server. Most of the time this will be set to all privileges.

After you've done this preparatory work, you are ready to import the information into the new database that you've created.

1. Go back to the MySQL database page and find the PHP MyAdmin link at the bottom of the page.

2. Click on the PHP MyAdmin link.

3. Look for the database you just created. If it's not listed you may need to open the drop-down menu and look for it there.

4. Click on it to select it and open the database.

5. There will be an option to IMPORT. Select that.

6. It will ask you for the location of the file you are importing. In the "location of text file" option, click the BROWSE button and look for the database that you stored in the folder on your desktop.

7. Select that database file and choose GO.

Following these steps you can import any database necessary for the proper functioning of the site. First create a shell database that has the same users and privileges of the old hosted site and then import the information into that shell. It's actually a very simple process even though there appears to be many steps. It probably won't take more than a few minutes for each database you need to import.

Other Options To Activate

If your buyer just got any old host and didn't do any work to prepare that platform, you will need to check other things and activate them if they aren't already setup to go. If the site you created didn't have any of these options activated or being used, then you won't need to check them out on the new host site either. But, just in case you did fiddle with these and then need a reminder, here are a few things that some people forget to check or activate that can cause errors when running the web site later.

- Email
Did you have a bunch of auto responders, email addresses, and more set up to run some marketing on your web site. You had better make sure that you set up the accounts for your buyer too or that portion of the web site will fail to work and notify them of potential buyers or someone wanting to join their email list.

- Special Directories
Did you have other directories that were running special features on your site? Make sure those are also set up. If they were password protected, you will also have to make sure they are password protected on the new host too. And, they will have to be password protected with exactly the same username and passwords as you used on the old site, to be safe and make sure things continue to function.

- Redirect Pages
Some Internet marketers use redirect pages to be able to quickly change an affiliate offer, should it go sour or they find a better option for the same type of product and service they've advertised. In that case, they may have the affiliate offer go to a redirect page that has programming that then takes them to the affiliate offer.

When they want to change out ALL affiliate links, they don't have to go to every single page and manually change the code. They just change the redirect page to another offer and all their web pages are updated automatically this way. If you do have redirect pages on your site that server a highly needed function, you will need to make sure they are also set up on your new customer's site too. They will need to have exactly the same information as what you had in your old site.

- Special Jobs
Have you set up CRON jobs to run to do special things? You will need to program the same jobs to run automatically on the new server too.

Configure The New Site

So, you have done a lot of work, but you still haven't transferred all the files that you had in the public_html folder. Before you do that, however, you will have to change the basic configuration file that WordPress uses so that it reflects the new database names, usernames, and passwords. To change the configuration file before uploading your files, do the following steps:

1. Go to the WordPress files in the folder on your desktop.

2. Locate the file called wp-config.php. If you don't have the extensions listed, it might just show up as a wp-config filename.

3. Open in file in a text editor and change the database names, usernames, and password information.

4. Be sure you include the new prefix that is associated with your customer's Cpanel account and not the one you used for the old site.

5. Save the changes you made and close the file.

Upload Remaining Files

You're almost done, so don't fret. Again, this seems like a long chapter, and it is! But, the details take far longer to write in detail than they take to actually execute. Once you have the hang of this, you will be able to do this entire process in about half an hour. Of course, the site itself won't propagate through the Internet for at least three days.

To finish uploading the files, use the following steps:

1. Create an FTP connection to your customer's hosting server.

2. Connect to their public_html directory.

3. Upload everything in the public_html folder on your desktop except for the subfolder that contained your database. Those have already been imported.

That's it! You're done. All you need to do now is to test the site thoroughly before you inform your buyer that the transfer has been completed and it awaits further propagation through the Internet, which usually takes a period of three days. What that means is that when they type their domain name into the URL before the three days are up, the customer might not get their site up as expected. Just wait three days, then test the site again and make sure it comes up when you put in the proper URL.

Note: Please keep in mind, these steps are designed to help you, but they may not work exactly the same way for you, depending on your computer or hosting...

By the way...do you want to learn exactly how to create a high income online business by meeting the needs of people in your niche through coaching, consulting, and teaching online classes?

Download my new recording: "How to Sell High Ticket Products Online" here: High Ticket Selling

Or...do you want to learn how to increase your online income by adding coaching, consulting, and online classes to your existing practice or business? Find out how here: Internet Marketing Coaching

No comments: