In the last 24 hours, I’ve successfully transferred Kestrel’s Aerie to a new web host. With any luck at all, the transfer was completely transparent to all of you: It certainly was, to me! I originally wrote this around 4pm Saturday; it’s now almost 1am on Sunday. At about midnight I came upstairs after watching UCLA’s football game (UCLA 23, Kansas State 9) to shut the computer down and go to bed.
Just to double-check things, I reloaded my site…and there was nothing but a blank page. And then I remembered: I never updated my wp-config file with my new database name, user, and password! Ooops. So I got that all done, but lots of stuff was still missing. I FTP’d my /wp-contents and /wp-includes folders again, and it appears I finally have stuff where it belongs. So what follows this paragraph is what I originally posted Saturday afternoon, and what you probably saw in your feed readers earlier. Needless to say, I gave myself a bit of a start, but I’m glad I figured out what I didn’t do. And that’s just one more argument in favor of a good, step-by-step written checklist. 
Twitter followers may have seen me looking for suggestions for a web host early in the day, then later last night, for a step-by-step guide to successfully moving a website; as I remember it, I ran into a couple minor snags when I moved from GoDaddy to HostICan. I did find one, but really, it wasn’t needed. (And thanks, @Lassirra, for the link. 
) Interestingly, the most important step is not included in any of the guides I found.
Step 1: Do your research before you commit to a new host.
I laid out for myself some basic requirements, based on my current file sizes, bandwidth, and projected needs. Then I added a fudge factor, and set the following as my minimum needs: 1 GB storage, 20 GB monthly bandwidth, 5+ domains, 20+ subdomains and parked domains, to allow for future expansion. I also wanted all this at a reasonable price. I ended up reading scores of reviews at http://webhostingstuff.com/ (WHS). Fairly quickly, I limited my search to "5-star" hosting sites, and made sure none of the reviews complained about CPU-cycle throttling by the host, which was my single, deal-killing complaint with HostICan. (I also submitted my own review of HostICan identifying that issue: I’m willing to put my mouth where my money is!)
After evaluating every single suggestion I received, I narrowed the list down to two: ICD Soft and Arvixe. There were three factors that tipped my decision in favor of Arvixe: First, price: ICDSoft was $6/month, while, with a discount due to the referral from WHS, Arvixe was $3/month (both for 2-year committments). Second, Arvixe is the third-highest rated hosting service listed at WHS; and third–and most importantly–Arvixe guaranteed 6 domains available to my account level, while I couldn’t find anything at ICD to indicate more than one domain. A minor factor is the fact that if I transferred my domain registrar to Arvixe, I would get free domain name renewals as long as I maintained a web hosting account with them. Now, that’s only five or six dollars a year, if that (I think it was $3 at GoDaddy), but it’s a nice perk.
The only minor hiccup in the whole process was that I forgot to unlock my domain at GoDaddy so Arvixe could transfer it. Oops! Once I responded to the email from Arvixe (after unlocking my domain at GoDaddy), it was a matter of minutes before the domain was transferred and my site was pointed to the new nameservers.
Previously, I’d downloaded my site to my computer; once my account was set up, I simply FTP’d it back to the new server. I also backed up my WordPress database via WP DB Backup, and after I had created a new MySQL database at Arvixe, I simply exported the SQL file from my desktop to the new database. [Edit: I really don't understand why what I uploaded on Saturday didn't "take," and why I had to upload it again at midnight, but all's well that ends!]
As far as I can tell, everything is where it’s supposed to be, but if anyone notices any glitches, please let me know through my contact form or through a comment here.
Oh, and performance? I logged out of the site, cleared my Firefox cache, and returned to the Aerie. I think the front page loaded in about 4 seconds, compared to around 10 seconds with my previous host. Yeah…that fast!
