Changing Server IP Addresses. Should I be concerned?

[Robbie8299]

Hello Mozers

Our site has been on a dedicated server for about four years now. (no other sites, just ours on the server)

I have made the decision to move it to a much better and faster server than the current server we are on for more than one reason.

My big fear is Google will lose trust for my site because of the IP change. Ip's stay with the server at 1and1 they do not follow the website.

So, I have done my due diligence and copied over all code and databases and have tested it completely to insure there are no issues when I change the DNS to point to the new server.  Made sure 1and1 is giving me an IP that has never been used, I am Keeping the old server on until cached DNS records expire for it.

Is there anything else I need to do to make sure I do not lose current rankings in Google? I have heard nightmare stories about making these kinds of changes but at this point for our site there is no turning back this is a change that must take place.

Any pointers and advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

[StevenvanVessum]

Hey Robbie,

Of course you're never entirely sure what Google will do, but if you're only changing host - nothing else - you should have no problem.

Do not:

• Change ownership of the domain;
• Make any major content changes (such as titles);
• Add large chunks of content - keep it to a minimum;
• Make any website template changes;

It's very important that all that's changing is the host. And of course keep an eye on your rankings while doing the migration. Perhaps use a SEOmoz campaign for that. They also do crawl tests so that should be good.

Good luck!

[BlueprintMarketing]

If you are only changing to a new hosting provider and you had a dedicated server as well as a dedicated IP. In the content will not be changed there’s not much to worry about at all. Google not lose any trust in you because of an IP address change if you are changing to a white listed IP. the only ways you could actually hurt your site would be if

1St If you moved from a dedicated server to a shared server and had a bad neighbor

"Google recognizes the server’s IP address. If the majority of websites are of ill-repute (porn sites are automatically marked as spammers), then unfortunately this law-abiding client gets lumped in with a bad crowd. Read more: http://online-sales-marketing.com/seo-issues-caused-by-bad-neighbors#ixzz22SZ2T5cA 
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution”

2nd  if you keep both sites up at the same time obviously you get duplicate content. You want to index the new site as soon as possible. Thus inform Google that will allow the Google bot to crawl it and therefore like Google no you are no longer on your old IP.

3rd  you could move to a slower host I noticed not talk about right often however slow DNS and slow web hosting both play a role in how Google rank your website. I hope whatever deal you made you are on a host that can provideThe same or better speed at delivering your content. Obviously if you lost a content delivery network or happen to luckily add one those types of things matter to Google. You can check with tools like http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or http://www.webpagetest.org  I tend to use the hosts SEOmoz recommends in their pro perks you cannot go wrong with any of them.

4th make sure your DNS is as good if not better it should be better if you’re moving this will keep speed up and problems to a minimum. Here a list of hosted DNS providers http://dns.nuvvo.com/lesson/12509-list-of-hosted-dns-providers  I use ultraDNS and DYN if you are looking to use a provider with any cast DNS and not spend much money at all and still have fantastic speeds Amazon Route 53 is a couple dollars a month on average and has an excellent reputation. http://aws.amazon.com/route53/

I hope I have been of some help in just remember people who don’t have dedicated IP’s rank extremely high regardless of the IP address changing.

Sincerely,

Thomas Zickell

[CleverPhD]

Generally speaking, if you transition it correctly, have the exact same site up and running on the new IP before you change the DNS you should be fine.  I did some Googling on the subject, and Mark D. has a much more specific and detailed description of what you should do as far as making sure you have the exact same site running

http://malteseo.com/seo/changing-ip-address-without-losing-google-ranking/

What you do not want to do at this point is change up your URL structure, title tags etc.  Those changes alone can impact your rankings and you don't want to compound the issues.  Less change, more gradual change is always better.