Problems of Switching Servers

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by Michael Wong

As you are probably aware, I switched the site, eboz.com, to a new server last month. I was aware of what was involved in this process, but I still encountered a few problems. I would like to share these with you, in case you need to switch servers some day.

The first thing you need to know is about something called "propagation." What it amounts to is that, although Internic has updated your name servers to point to your new server IP address, it doesn't necessarily mean that all other major ISPs have. All the major Interned Service Providers (ISPs) have their own name servers, and they have to update them before their users are able to log onto your site at the new server.

This can take two-three days, or even longer. In fact, a week after I had switched to the new server, I noticed that just about everyone else was logging onto the new site correctly, except me! Can you believe that? I couldn't log into my own site, while everyone else could! I found that quite bizarre.

Another thing is that if you have changed the names of your HTML files or moved them around, a lot of your links will be broken. This could include a bookmarked page, or a link from a search engine.

If your web host allows you to create a custom error page, I recommend that you do so. A number of errors can occur every time someone visits your site:

• 404 - Page Not Found - A file was requested that does not exist.

• 403 - Access Forbidden - A user tried to access a file or directory that they did not have permission to access.

• 401 - Authorization Required - A user tried to access a password protected file or directory and did not give the correct username or password.

• 500 - Generic Server Error - For any number of reasons, the server encountered some type of error.

Normally, the person would be presented with the usual error page:

"Not Found. The requested URL was not found on this server."

Not very helpful, is it? If they encounter that a few times, I am inclined to think that most people will give up and try another site.

Click on this link (opens in new window) to see my custom error page. The error page appears, because the page does not exist.

Do you agree that this page much more helpful? I have explained why the person has arrived at the error page and have asked them to send me a note to let me know what they did to cause that error. There's also a site map to help them find what they are looking for.

Since I implemented this new error page, I've received a lot more reports about bugs in the site than I ever did before. It seems that if you ask nicely, people are more than happy to help. This in turn has helped me to find and cure the bugs in the site, so that other people don't come across the same error.

This solution is not ideal, but it's better than no custom error page.

You should also submit your site to all the major search engines again, so that their crawlers will come to your site and re-index it. They usually do this on a regular basis anyway, but there's no harm in asking them to come around as soon as they can, because you don't know when the next scheduled visit will be.