Check which nameservers the domain uses. If they are the host's, the host updates the records. If not, change every record holding the old IP address once the move is confirmed, then test the site and email.

An email about Saturday night

The host's email says the account moves to a new server on Saturday night, with a new IP address, and suggests updating DNS records if needed.

Many owners assume the host has it in hand. For plenty of sites that is right; for others, the website and email stop on Saturday night and stay stopped.

Which applies depends on one question: who answers for the domain's DNS records, the host or someone else.

What the IP address does

Every visit to your site and every message to your domain starts with a lookup. The domain's DNS records give the IP address of the server holding the site and the mailboxes.

When the account moves, that address changes. Any record still holding the old one sends visitors and mail to a machine that no longer has your site.

If the host answers for your DNS, it updates those records as part of the move. If the records sit elsewhere with the old address typed in, nobody updates them but you.

Finding where the records live

The nameservers listed for the domain show who answers for its records. Your registrar's control panel shows them, and so does a WHOIS lookup:

If you cannot log in to wherever the records live, sort that out this week. A missing password is how a five-minute update becomes a lost weekend.

The records that hold the address

Where the records sit outside the host, look for every one containing the old IP address, starting with the A record for the domain itself and the one for its www version.

Mail often depends on it too. The MX record names a mail server, often mail followed by your domain, and that name has its own A record with the old address.

Check the SPF record, a TXT record listing the servers allowed to send your mail. If it names the old address, mail from the new server, website forms included, may be treated as suspect.

When to change them

Ask the host for the new IP address and the exact time of the move. Change the records once the host confirms the account is running on the new server.

A day or two ahead, lower the records' time to live if the registrar allows it, so servers elsewhere check back sooner for the new address.

Ask the host to keep the old server answering for a few days, since some visitors and mail servers will use the old address until their stored copy expires.

Mail during the change

For a day or so, some mail may arrive at the old server and some at the new one. Ask the host how anything delivered to the old server will reach you.

Check the mail settings in any desktop mail program. If the incoming or outgoing server is given as an IP address rather than a name, it needs changing too.

A worked example

A ready-mix concrete supplier with two plants and a fleet of mixer trucks takes orders by phone and email. Contractors often send Monday's orders on Sunday evening.

When the host announced a Saturday move, the dispatcher checked the nameservers and found the registrar's. The records there had been typed in years earlier by a former designer.

The A records, the mail server's record and the SPF record all held the old address, and the registrar login was in the designer's name, which took two days to sort out.

The time to live was lowered on Thursday and the records updated on Saturday night, once the host confirmed the move. The old server kept running until Wednesday.

On Sunday evening, a test order sent from a personal address reached the dispatch inbox, and so did a message from the website's order form.

The difference was timing: every record holding the old address was found before the move, not discovered from a missing truck on Monday morning.

What to test on Monday morning

Load the site from a phone off the office network and from a computer elsewhere. A device that remembers the old address can make a working site look broken, or the reverse.

Send an email to the office from an outside account and reply to it. Then submit every form on the site and confirm that each message arrives.

Check anything that connects to the server by address: online payments, a supplier's ordering link, scheduled backups, saved FTP connections. Some keep a list of allowed addresses that needs the new one.

Other changes that come with a new server

A new server often runs a newer version of PHP with different settings. Older forms and scripts that relied on the previous setup can fail without any error a visitor sees.

A site with a secure certificate often has it set up on its own IP address, so it must be installed again at the new one before any checkout or login page is used.

Ask the host what will differ, and have your web developer test the forms, any login area and every page that does more than display text.

The counter-case

When the host answers for the domain's DNS and runs the mail as well, the move is usually invisible: the records change along with the server.

A domain whose mail runs elsewhere, and whose site record points by name rather than by number, may also need nothing changed.

The Monday tests are still worth ten minutes, because they are the only way to know, rather than assume, that the move went as the email said.

Before Saturday night

  1. Look up the nameservers for the domain.
  2. Find every record holding the old IP address.
  3. Make sure you can log in where the records live.
  4. Lower the time to live a day or two ahead.
  5. Update the records once the host confirms the move.
  6. Check the SPF record and the mail settings.
  7. Test the site, email and forms on Monday morning.

Step three needs the most lead time. A record cannot be changed by someone who cannot log in, and recovering an old registrar account rarely happens over a weekend.

A dealer price list anyone can open describes how to test a login area properly, files included, a check worth repeating after any server move.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to do anything when my host changes servers?

Only if the domain's DNS records sit somewhere other than the host. Check the nameservers: if they are the host's, it updates the records as part of the move.

Where do I find the domain's nameservers?

In your registrar's control panel, or through a WHOIS lookup of the domain. The names show which company answers for the DNS records.

Which records hold the IP address?

Usually the A records for the domain and for www, the A record for the mail server named in the MX record, and sometimes the SPF record.

When should the records be changed?

Once the host confirms the account is running on the new server. Lowering the time to live a day or two ahead helps the change spread sooner.

What should I test after the move?

Load the site off the office network, send and reply to an outside email, submit every form, and check payments, backups and anything that connects by address.

Why keep the old server running for a few days?

Some visitors and mail servers keep using a stored copy of the old address until it expires. The old server catches their requests in the meantime.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

A server move announced for this weekend?

Forward us the host's email, and we will check where your records live and what needs changing before Saturday.

Start a Conversation