The Bridge over Troubled Waters!

Lessons learned the hard way is not the best way to learn but the silver lining - they stick with you for a long time. Here is my one such story and how to avoid it. My Saga - Transferring a foreign domain to WA? Here is the process.

My Nightmare.

Have you ever tried to transfer a website from one host to another?

It can be a hassle especially when the old host is not exactly co-operating or at best his procedures are antiquated.

I just lived through that nightmare and I want to save the readers of this post from that experience. I spent over 2 days to get this resolved - thanks to the exemplary patience shown by the site support team here at WA.

Here is a simplified version of my situation: I had 2 websites with another host. I was paying him $200 / month for hosting, posting 5 articles a month for me and weekly mastermind meetings that to my mind were worthless.

He oes not give us access to the c-panel nor domain registrar - we are kept in the dark about the registrar and the name servers and any info that I would need to transfer out of him.

When I told him I was leaving - he offered to host and provide mastermind meetings for $ 49/month - what a coincidence, heh?

I am fit to be tied down due to the frustrations he put me through. I don't want to get my feelings out here and digress form the subject.

Now, having taken a deep breath I am raedy. So lets resume...

I have 4 sites to be transferred. Of these we attempted 2. One is in the "dogs" niche while the other is in insurance. Situation in both is very different.

1. Dogs niche website: He gave me backup files for the website, did not give me any info on getting the domain transferred or which registrar it was with.

Turns out that the database backup files are not sql compatible - you need to use an app called updraftPlus. I am still in the process of getting this resolved. This site is down now as I have run out of time.

2. Insurance - His registrar has advised him that a legal issue in transferring the domain is holding up the transfer until May 4th.

WA magic to the rescue.

I cannot say enough good things about how professionally and patiently WA site support team helped and held my hand through the process.

Upon explaining the situation, the WA team decided to do the following:

They created a temp domain for the Insurance website. >> Copied my live website to this temp website >> Had me verify that everything was good, >> had me move website from temp site to my domain at WA >> Arrange to have old hosting website (DNS) to point at WA servers.

My insurance site is up and running.

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure you have good back up files of your website at all times.
2. If the back up files are saved in the cloud or a service like dropbox - make sure its login credentials and any associated account info is handy.
3. Make sure your domain registrar info, Wordpress login are handy
4. If you are going to transfer domains. / websites to WA it is a much easier process to do it while the other website is up - the process is explained below.
5. Make sure you have both sites up and running - they recommend to give google 30 days to index the new site even though it does not really take that lomg.
6. Make sure you have 301 redirect implemented from old site to new location.

The Easy Process for domain Transfer:

To transfer your website to Wealthy Affiliate servers all we need is WordPress Dashboard's login details.

Here is the process:

1 - Provide WA with your WordPress Dashboard's login details
2 - WA will download and install your website on a temporary site here at WA
3 - You can verify that the site has transferred correctly
4 - You then update your DNS(Domain name servers) to point at Wealthy Affiliate and MOVE your temporary site to your REAL domain.

Wealthy Affiliate Nameservers are:

Primary: NS1.MYWAHOSTING.COM
Secondary: NS2.MYWAHOSTING.COMSo,

Good luck!

PS:: I just received notification from site support that they have recovered the above Dogs niche website as well. You guys at WA site support are AWSOME!!