is the host you are with now using control panel? (Cpanel) if yes, then it should be a doddle changing it

I have just sent you a PM with an alternative. Please consider!!

yes my host has cpanel. Some parts of it i'm familiar while others i'm not...

I wont hi-jack the thread by advertising my Hosting Company here but if you pm me i will supply details.
We will assist in moving sites FREE to new customers.

I'm not going to make any decisions yet its not urgent.

If you have an offer you can pm me with the details, the more details the better like hosting homepage, bandwidth, packages and prices, disk space, cpanel is a must etc. I'm not making any decisions right now but i appreciate any offers i get.

Thanks!

Jamie, here is how to proceed with your changeover:

1. find a new host, pay for the hosting and get your login info
2. backup your directory database and all the site file contents
3. Login to the new hosting control panel (without changing you domain to the new host just yet)
4. You should be able to upload your files, database etc via IP address of the new hosting company.
5. Once your file is uploaded to the new host, change your domain dns to the new host.

You will not experience any downtime at all.

Good luck

but make sure you leave the site up at the old address as well, because google and other spiders do not spider domains, they spider IP adresses, so until your old IP is no longer getting hit by the spiders, make sure the hosting is up. A month or two should be enough!

Originally Posted by OldWelshGuy

google and other spiders do not spider domains, they spider IP adresses,

Is this so James? there are some custer servers that serve www request via proxy server, they do not let you get anywhere near their webserver or know the IP address of their webserve. search engines still index such sites based on domain name rather than IP address.

There's already a tutorial for this here:

Transferring phpLD to a New Host :: phpLD Knowledge Base

- MENJ