Today I learned something new about managing domains when switching hosts. I always purchase my domains through Sustainable Online Solutions or Godaddy (so this information applies to both companies because they use the same technology). I work with these companies because I like their support and the graphical user interface, though crowded in Godaddy, it is very functional. My ultimate goal was to setup a site that had once been hosted at Godaddy, was then moved (and was currently hosted) at HostGator, and was now going to being moved to another account on Sustainable Online Solutions (which is essentially Godaddy). These are the basic steps that I followed:

1. Since the URL was always hosted at Godaddy I logged in and changed the domain name server records (DNS Records) to point to Godaddy instead of HostGator. I changed them from NS539.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM (and 40) for HostGator to NS51.DOMAINCONTROL.COM (and 52) for Sustainable Online Solutions
2. I then logged into the new hosting account on Sustainable Online Solutions and began setting up the hosting package I had purchased. One step in this process involves entering the domain name that the hosting is for. I entered the URL and got an error stating "this domain name is used"

   I called up Godaddy to get help here and basically the problem was that my URL was already hosted (a long time ago) on a separate Godaddy account (as mentioned in the intro to this tutorial). So even though I had pointed the URL to at one point HostGator and was allowed to be "double hosting" there and Godaddy without a problem, Godaddy keeps track internally and will not let one URL be attached to two hosting accounts of its own. Once I found this out I deleted the old hosting account on Godaddy and that freed up the URL! I was able to enter it in the process described in step 2 and everything seemed great.

   It seems like this sort of thing happens a lot. Somebody wants to create a new website and they just dash off and do it without cleaning up the old site - in some cases they may even be paying for hosting in two locations! When this happens all at the same host it is good that there are systems in place to allert the user of a duplicate. For this reason I always try to keep my domains and hosting on the same company and that is why Sustainable Online Solutions offers free migration of URL's and Files when someone signs up for our hosting plans.

3. So now I thought everything would work, my nameservers were pointing at the correct hosting account, the old hosting account had been disabled, and I was ready to upload. I pulled up Dreamweaver and tried to connect using ftp.myurl.com but it didn't work. Usually this works fine but in this case it just wouldn't go, I thought it might have to do with the 24/48 hr DNS updates or something so I used the IP address of my new hosting account instead and it allowed me to connect and upload. After two days of waiting for the DNS records to update I realized that something else must be wrong.

   I still couldn't connect using ftp.myurl.com and when I typed myurl.com into the address bar of Firefox it was pointing to a Godaddy "coming soon" page. It just didn't make sense, it was like Godaddy wasn't recognizing my files even though I had already uploaded them. It also couldn't be pointing to the old Godaddy hosting account because I had just deleted it, what was going on?

4. I realized that there must be some other setting in addition to the DNS setting that controls how a URL is pointed at a hosting account. I called Godaddy and eventually found out that the "A Record" contains the IP address of where you want to host the URL and was overriding the DNS settings because both hosting plans were at Godaddy. The system was saying, yep! You want to host it on our servers, now which server is it? That's what the A Record is for...

   All I had to do was edit the A Record with the new IP address (the one I had been using to upload files with Dreamweaver) and it all started to work. This is very easy to do and I've included a screenshot below in case you're having the same problem. You can get your IP address from the hosting account page or by calling your host, and you can get to the A Record in your Godaddy "My Domains" section, just click the domain you want to edit, then click the Total DNS Control and MX Records link and then the click little pencil button to edit the record.