Troubleshooting a Web Hosting Snafu
Advice on how to insulate your website hosting and domain name registration from problems with your hosting service provider. March 28, 2015
Question (WOODWEB Member) :
Recently my website provider cancelled my website and directed them all to a coming soon page or it lead to a page that said "Sorry! This site is no longer available." I have had this website for 13 years and it included three click and build webpages and were all paid in full even a recent renewal in December. All the links provided by the search engines lead to the web address they had placed my websites. Even transferring my websites to another web hosting company will not restore the first page listings for my search terms to find me. I have to have some way for people to find my websites again.
Forum Responses
(Business and Management Forum)
From Contributor H:
Resubmit the website to all the major search engines. This should take less than an hour. Also if you can make any headway with the old hosting provider see if they can set up a redirect to your new IP address for anyone who tries to find you at the old IP address. On the other hand once your new IP address propagates across the web (usually several days as I understand things) any search engine results should just simply direct to the new IP address. If it didn't work this way people would never be able to change hosting providers without losing their placement in search results.
From Contributor C:
Often domain registrations are different from hosting subscriptions. If you bought your domain and hosting separately, it seems that you need to renew your domain. The "registry.com" words on the "unavailable" page click through to a domain name registry service. If you can still edit your pages with the hosting service, but they don't publish to the domain, your domain has expired.
From Contributor J:
First, you need to check with the domain registrar, and make sure you have control of the domain. It seems to be registered with register.com. Next, set up web hosting somewhere - you can get an account with register.com, or another provider.
From the original questioner:
Thank you all for your replies to my post. Register.com has just responded to my complaint that I filed with the BBB. In response to settling the complaint, they just sent me an email and offered me a new web hosting deal at no extra cost to me for my websites. I just hope that they offer this same deal to all the other people lost theirs. After, we are all on this world together.
From contributor S:
That's great, but there was one piece of info above that is important for you, and for all of us. Get your domain name registered in an account that you control. You can then point this domain name to anyone that will run - or host - your website for you. Then if this happens again, you still control your web identity and should be able to relocate it without much trouble. Given your experience with this outfit, you can still get an account somewhere and move the ownership of your domain name while having them fulfill their new arrangement. Don't just sit back.
From Contributor S:
I can't stress the importance of the last comment enough. Remain in control of your domain and hosting account. Even if there's no malice, some sole provider can lose interest, get a full time job, or just lose track of your information!
From the original questioner:
Yes I am very skeptical about accepting their offer as I have lost faith, if I ever had any, in them. I have uploaded all new pages to my free pages that my internet provider gives me for the time being. I am in the process of checking out a suitable and more honest, truthful and reliable web hosting alternative. I do wish to remain in control of my website and how it is handled.
