How do I move an established blog to new hosting?

[Clay Franklin]

I buy my domains from Godaddy and my main blog is also hosted at Godaddy. It is clayfranklin.com (http://clayfranklin.com) about 10 years old and has 180 pages and all my redirects.

I want to move it to Hostgator, yet am a bit worried I will break something.

1) How can I move a blog from Godaddy to Hostgator without breaking anything?

2) I was thinking of getting a seperate hosting account for it at Host gator instead of setting it up under my other main hosting account there thinking it will have better SEO. Is this true?

3) Can I buy from my own affiliate link at Hostgator?

Thank you,
Clay

[angienewton]

I'm pretty sure Host Gator does all the transfers for you so get with them and they will tell you how it all works and as far as SEO I doubt that matters so I would just keep it all under the main hosting account. It is my understanding that you can't purchase using your own affiliate link but I would read the TOS just to be sure. If you're not able to use it,of course I would be happy to share my HG aff. link with you *wink*

[Lynn Terry]

If you already have an account at HostGator, you'd be considered a returning customer - not a new customer - so nobody would get affiliate commission. It would show up, but then get removed as "duplicate" (meaning duplicate customer). They don't pay out per sale, but per customer.

No, it won't affect your SEO - UNLESS you are doing some major blackhat crosslinking between your websites "James Martell Style". Otherwise, no worries - it won't help you or hurt you.

If you set up a new account at HostGator, they'll move your site/blog for you free of charge. Only the primary domain on that account. So that would be one good reason to set up a new account if you prefer to pay a monthly bill on the site vs paying someone once to move it for you. Their support team will do that for a flat rate to your existing account.

[Kayla Fay]

But backup - just in case! One hosting company lost an entire site of mine. Thankfully, I had it backed up. Could have been a disaster.

[Clay Franklin]

Thank you for the fast response Angie, Lynn and Kayla,

Reading the past posts, I realized having the domain and hosing at the same place was not good and also that GoDaddy is not the best for hosting. I only have a page rank of 1 on that 10 year old domain and have a Page Rank of 4 on my twitter after just a few years. Posting often makes a difference, so that is what I plan to do from now on.

Question: I want to change the name from "Strategic Thoughts" about internet marketing to something else. Will it mess up my PR or will it be fine and just keep adding good content often? If you type strategic thoughts in google it is number 1 LOL

[Lynn Terry]

How many people search that phrase - and if any at all, what do you imagine they are actually searching for... and does your content match that search query? Just some thoughts to ask yourself.

Changing your keywords won't affect your PageRank. That is a complicated algorithm but it has more to do with site theming & link reputation. Changing your keywords WILL affect what you rank for - but that's the point I assume.

[Clay Franklin]

Thank Lynn, You are the best. I have been struggling with these questions for months, and now I am getting the answers in an hour from an expert. I am one lucky person to have found you and your loyal members who are all very happy to help each other.

I am changing the blog title right away to my niche of Internet and Social Media Marketing. Or is this too broad? LOL
I am interested in your response about theming for page rank.
What do you suggest? Would this be a good topic for another thread?

[Lynn Terry]

This is fine - you can do a search on google for "site theming" or I believe Dan Thies mentions it in http://www.seofaststart.com (free download).

Your main page is going to be optimized for the broadest term related to your niche or sub-niche. Your categories will be optimized for more specific phrases. And your pages/posts will be optimized for very specific longtail keyword phrases.

And to answer your question - that depends on your prominent topics. My own blog ranks well for "internet marketing blog" - because that's what it is :)