Sometimes you just have to move. Its going to be a mess. Someone is going to screw it up for you.

And all the beautiful referencing of the detail pages on the search engines is going to get messed up, either cutting you off or keeping pointing to the old site.

Each time I move I say never again

If you want to register a domain name,
do not use UK2 - it is guaranteed to end in tears
For confirmation try http://www.geocities.com/eviluk2net/
You have been warned!

Firstly, keep the old website going, warts and all, until the domain name reference finally takes effect and points to the new site.

And make sure the bills for the old server are paid up-to-date. If not then he may decline to release the domain name until you have paid.

Procedure to move a domain name from server A to server B:

1. To-Server B fills out a template and Emails it to Internic or whoever,

2. They send a message to the From-Server A

3. From-Server A then asks the domain name owner

4. Domain Name Owner has to send a fax to From-Server A saying yes please. (If he knows the form, then he could have sent this in advance)

5. From-Server A can say yes to Internic and they process it, which is currently taking them about three days.

6. To-Server B keeps watching the Whois website to see if and when it is updated.

7. To-server B then fixes the DNS links in his computers and arranges for Emails to be forwarded to the correct mailbox as required. And of course they only update the computers in the middle of the night. And it takes a day or two for the addresses to propagate across the Internet.

8. The user sits at home or in his office drinking black coffee checking his own domain name every five minutes and wondering why everyone speaks so highly of this modern technology.

9. Only when the domain is actually working can you start submitting the URL to the search engines, and that takes for a few weeks to get results.

10. The structure of the new website will probably be different from the old so none of the old page references which the search engines used to point to the old site will work. You will have to re-register the old pages with all the search engines so that they each find the 404 message and delete the reference.

11. Some ISPs will delete your old site immediately, which is OK if your new site is actually working the domain name works. Some will keep it up and people will still find it and wonder why the information is out of date.