Server Migration

My web host offers me a server migration 2 days ago. A move from the old server to a brand new, 4 hyper-threading CPUs powered server. Free of charge. Although knowing the fact that server migration will cause temporary decrease of rankings in search engines, I welcomed the change. Faster is always better.

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The migration went without a hitch. It was completed in 15 minutes, along with four other websites moved to the new server. I modified the name servers (DNS) of my domain names, and went to sleep, as name server took few hours at least to propagate.

The next day, I found all my websites are successfully pointing to the new server, and working fine. All except this blog, which matter the most to me and my business. I immediately sent an email to the support team. They replied back almost immediately claiming that they are working on it to help bring my blog back up. A few email back and forth, and they can’t seem to figure out the problem. I also couldn’t figure out why. The servers are fine since other websites are ok. So I taken a look at my wordpress script, its plugins and some other possible issue. And still the blog couldn’t display.

Then, one of their more brilliant technical personnel found out the problem. One of my plugin is the culprit (not compatible with the latest PHP version of the new server). He disabled the plugin, manually dropped the flooded row of the table from the database. The next thing I know, my website loads perfectly.

I’ve been through many web hosts before, and I know that if it were other web hosts, they would simply reply something like “Evidence shows that our server is working fine. We suggest it would be the problem on your side. Kindly take a look at your own script”. You have to give it to the technical support team of Exabytes. I guess that’s why they are the number one web hosting company in Malaysia. Numbers don’t lie.

P/s: The aftermath of web migration, my website indeed dropped from rank no.3 to rank no.9 on the keyword “Malaysia SEO”. All within a day. :D

Update 23rd April 2007: I’m back on No.3 again. Apology for the obsession over the ranking, but it’s my “credentials” of being a good SEO. Stay hold, the above 2 websites with the both keywords in their domain names are next.

Lim CS on April 18, 2007

8 Responses

    No.10 now.

    I can see the main point of this post is:- ranking dropped. Ranting huh?!

    GuTi on April 19th, 2007

    No la. The ranking will increase over time. The drop is temporary, I think :)

    Lim CS on April 19th, 2007

    i just have to ask, do you get lots of visits from google for that term?

    if you dont want to answer, its okay. =)

    reallybites on April 19th, 2007

    Not a lot. Around 3-5 per day. Enough to bring in me business to keep me alive :)

    Lim CS on April 19th, 2007

    “Evidence shows that our server is working fine. We suggest it would be the problem on your side. Kindly take a look at your own script”.

    I must agree on this statement.

    Undertypo on April 20th, 2007

    Patrick: Exactly.

    Lim CS on April 20th, 2007

    Google does not know you are moving server unless the URL changes or your site was down for a long time. Therefore it won’t affect your ranking in any way.

    gaman on April 22nd, 2007

    My website was down half a day, perhaps more than day :)

    Lim CS on April 22nd, 2007

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