Website confusion

Carer

Hope someone can help, being googling for days and can't find an answer I can understand...
I have e-commerce website and 6 domains hosted with 1and1 - (all domains point to same website), but I want to build a new e-commerce site with create.net as it's half the price and has several features I need that 1and1 don't provide.

I know I can cancel the 1and1 contract and my website will cease to exist, but how do I then make the new site work with the domains? If I transfer the domains, I assume I will lose all my emails? So confusing.

I really can't afford to have downtime on the site or lose email enquiries so I need to work out how to do this seamlessly and I just can't work it out. Neither site is very helpful over the domain issue.

I'm sure it's really simple and I'm just stupid but I can't understand it.

I'm looking at moving the domains to 123reg so they are separate from the hosting in the future.

OneADay

You could forward all your emails to another account (hotmail/gmail or any other you fancy) so you still keep all existing contacts etc. Assuming you transferring domain, you would then be able to get new emails through the new provider.

T_T_2

I think the OP's main concern is that there will be a period of downtime whilst the domain is being transfered and to the best of my knowledge this will be unavoidable. How long it takes will depend on how quickly 1and1 will release your details and how quickly your new ISP picks up the trail and gets the ball rolling. It's not too uncommon for this to take over 24 hours to complete and even after then your website may only be accessible sporadically.

As for your existing emails you should be able to export them to a .csv or similar file (like an excel document) and then import this into your new email client once you transfer. This assumes you are using a webmail client. If you are accessing your emails via Outlook then no action is necessary to retain existing emails, you might just need to adjust your login credentials when it is transfered. It may be worth using the backup feature on Outlook just to be on the safe side.

zee_2

with your domains at 123reg it is free to use exmp. mail@mybiz.co uk redirect to gmail a/c for biz. and point all other domains to same address , also download all details of webpages to memory stick for reference ect, while still with 1+1
with your own domain email , you can redirect and not loose any time.

InsideInsurance

Are your domains held by 1&1 or are they with a different domain registrar?

If they are with a different domain registrar did you change the nameservers or the DNS to "point" the domains to the 1&1 servers?

If it is a DNS change then just changing the DNS again should almost instantly make the change globally with only some that cache DNS information still going to the old servers

If it is a Nameserver change then changing them over can take longer, up to a couple of days, though most will see the change in minutes.

To deal with the lag that will exist the normal process is to keep both servers concurrently running for a few days and either have the two copies of the site running or do a redirect from the old server to the new server (just be careful you dont create a loop with this)

As to the historic email, well that depends on what you currently have set up and what the new host supports, really however I would be expecting your new host to be helping you with all of these migration issues!

victor2

Presumably you are also going to build the new site first and then transfer the existing domains over to it. You don't want to have an "Under Construction" sign greeting visitors - they won't bother coming back!