Got Web Ideas? Fishing for the Answers?
Think Outside The Code First!
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Facts, Thoughts, and Opinions About Web Development and Business Strategy
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Target Topic: Issues with DNS when moving a Website. Hopefully helpful,
speculative as there is much gray area involved.
Any time you move a Website to a new host you must update the
DNS records for that domain. The process is referred to as DNS Propagation
and it can take up to 48 hours for the domain to propagate although it usually only
takes a few hours. I have done this a number of times in my day and never had a
problem with a domain propagating until last week.
I had a Website that needed to be moved. We transferred the site and updated the
DNS. It worked great for everyone in the Eastern United States but for some reason
it did not propagate in a timely manner in the West. After waiting 60 hours, I knew
something did not go correctly. Somewhere out there the DNS records for the domain
were cached and the DNS cache never cleared upon our request.
We deleted the DNS records and re-added them. That seemed to do the trick although
it still took 24 hours for it to work in the West. Hopefully no one has to deal
with this but I am sure someone else will at some point in time. Here are some tips
and tricks to follow if you ever have this issue.
Do Not Disable the Old Website Until You Are Sure
Don't disable the old hosting account until you are sure. If your application is
using a database then you may want to disable page views and put a service statement
on the Website or redirect any requests to that Website to the IP Address of the
new hosting account. This way you do not have lapses in data.
Monitor the Old Hosting Account
Use Web statistics or other method to see if requests are still coming in for the
old hosting account. When you are confident that requests are no longer going there
then disable the hosting account and ask the former host to remove any DNS records
for that domain name from their DNS. While it should not matter, it could cause
problems if anyone else on that network tries to access the Website or send email
to someone on that domain name. Since the old host will still have the DNS records
for the domain on their network, any requests on that network will not leave their
network to find the new host. In other words, it will try to find the old Website
or the old mail server for any requests sent through or from that network.
Run Your Own Look-Ups with PING
To see if DNS has propagated for your location, do the following:
Go to Tools >> Accessories >> Command Prompt.
When the black screen opens, type the following:
ping www.YourDomainName.com
The screen should come back and say:
Pinging www.YourDomainName.com [111.222.33.44] with XX bytes of data
Where 111.222.33.44 if your IP Address.
"ping" is just as it sounds. It will try and bounce a request off the machine
you are looking for.
This will tell you if your domain name is being found and where it is located. Pay
attention to the IP Address returned. Compare it to the IP Address of your domain
name, which should be in the documents that your new hosting company provided.
Windows Built-In DNS Caching
Windows has it's own built-in caching model. This means that your PC may attempt
to find the old host rather than the new one despite the fact that DNS records have
been updated. Make sure you clear the DNS Cache on your PC. To clear your DNS cache,
do the following:
Go to Tools >> Accessories >> Command Prompt.
When the black screen opens, type the following:
ipconfig flushdns
That should clear your DNS cache.
3rd Party DNS Services
Since domain propagation trickles through the system, your DNS records may update
in some places faster than others. Use tools like
Network-Tools.com or MXToolBox
(Mail Records Only) to check the status of DNS propagation from 3rd
party systems. If you see the new DNS information on their Website but you do not
see it on your PC then it is still propagating through the network.
How Long to Wait?
In this day and age, DNS propagation should happen for the entire United States well within
24 hours. Just to be sure, give it 48 hours. If after 48 hours, you are still seeing
the old site or DNS records have yet to update for certain areas then something is
likely wrong. Consult with your hosting support to try and resolve the issue.
I have seen some speculation that updating DNS over the weekend takes longer. I have not
experienced this personally. In my experience, it makes no difference what day of the
week you update DNS. Computers don't take weekends off and DNS Updating is a fully
automated process.
Verify with Domain Registrar
Make sure you return to your Registrar (GoDaddy, Network Solutions, etc...) to ensure that
you did, in fact, update the DNS servers for the domain name and those changes did
take affect.
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