Losing my 7 year old website

[mikejust]

I am going to try very hard NOT to sound resentful - This morning, as every morning for seven years, I logged into my webhost/site to find a message that they are shutting down my website which is 100% of my business that supports my family (children too). whine whine.. but i AM serious..

YEP, after seven years building the site, a $5,000 per mo. income will be lost on March 31st. My first thought was "go get a job" . I live in a small Kansas and that is not an easy thing (jobs).

SO - I have 60 days with which to get a new website up and mimimize, as best possible, the SEO damage. Having used "keywords" and knowing some html, and having two other folks to help , maybe there is a small chance and I am asking for help here....from you all.

First, there are over 1,000 pages on my current web site

http://www.treetables.com/

It was originally developed as this

www.rusticwoods.bigstep.com/ and still shows up in search engines as such (see google links below)..

Exactly how many are receiving hits, i do not know but can increase my stat counter monitors to find out..

Here is my plan
A) To maximize the keywords and current traffic - identify the top keyword landing pages of my web site and *******te them (ie copy paste the verbiage into the new web pages. )

B) List the keywords per page in order of most hits

C) Organize the keyword landing pages in order of most hits to least hits and work on the largest hitting pages first.

QUES 1) Does this sound reasonable.. ?

2) Are there any tricks that can assist me in NOT losing the hard earned traffic that I am now receiving due to rankings from (ie googl and yahoo ++)

For example.. on google for the key words "tree tables" , I am number ONE..

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ADBF&q=tree+tables

and stump tables - #11

http://www.google.com/search?q=stump+tables&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ADBF&start=10&sa=N

I also have an old website (the one on above listing) rusticwoods.bigstep.com

3) Are redirects an answer?
I barely understand the term, let alone know how it might work or be set up.

4) Is there ANYTHING that will allow me to not lose my rankings?

COMMENT - I did read your transfer info. and did check out my www.treetables registration and I AM listed as the administrator and my email address rustic@wtciweb.com is still valid...

5) When I transfer my domain name to VH , will the search engines all of a sudden quit finding me??

6) Is it better to transfer my domain name quickily (after creating only a few pages (ie one of many keyword pages) or should I wait till (only got 60 days) i have as many pages created as possible?

7) If i have helpers here (and i have two others that might help) and we all started creating VH web pages on 3 diff computers, how can we bring all the pages together for the lauching? Will they email?

LOTS of grey areas here,, maybe i SHOULD just go look for a job.

Is there any hope of NOT losing the web traffic that I have built up.. Esentially ,, losing my business??

COMMENT - The corp. that is doing this is Hostway... Can't BELIEVE they can just take away, literally shut down a business.. Well at least i have 60 days to do something.. hope it works...
thank you for listening to my whining.. looking forward to reading posts..
onward

Kind Regards
Just

[LadyEye]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

Hi ... sorry to hear your troubles. You have come to the right place, you can smile about that ...

Bethers, I am sure, will be along to give you some advice about how best to proceed with this so that you do not suffer any seo loss .. you won't if done properly via her instructions .. interesting you have two domain names with the same website and information on them both .. hmmm .. or maybe they are not, I didn't look ??

As far as your 1000 pages are concerned, you do have 60 days, so that is good news .. and you can easily import your website into blue voda, page by page ...

If you open the web builder and choose new page from existing html, and then type in the address for each page, and tick remote .. your page will import for you and minor adjustments will need to be made on all of your pages .. you can try this now with the blue voda software ...

once you have all of your pages in order, then I would go about making the domain transfer, your site will be ready to publish, and away you will go ..

if you have a few different people helping you on different computers, the information and pages will need to be transferred to one computer to the other, images and all and into the same folder .otherwise you wouldn't be able to update a page from one computer if it was on the other, emailing the .bvp files can be done, however, certain elements, like images and nav bars do not transfer .. so ... . it might just be a matter of doing 30 or so pages a night from one computer - 2 hrs tops likely or less each night.. you have plenty time and importing your pages will go much quicker than rebuilding from scratch .. so this option is available to you ..

[Watdaflip]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

I don't know how your current hosting is setup, but you should be able to download all of your files off of your website (via ftp).

If so all you have to do is....

1) Download your current website
2) Find new hosting, either transfer your domain, or just point the nameservers to the new hosting.
3) Upload your website to the new host

You won't have to recreate your pages, and you shouldn't lose customers (There could be up to 48 hours for the nameservers to change).

This is all assuming you can download your website from your current host

[sedona]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

Hi Just,

LadyEye knows what she's talking about and I don't know that I'm trying to add anything except a little affirmation.
It sounds like you are losing your host and not your domain. As long as it's registered to you you should have no problem apart from a fair amount of work to rebuild in blue voda and get it up with voda host without much of a hitch.

You have, I believe, found your best solution here.

And I will watch to see what Beth has to say about how your search engine traffic may or may not be affected.

Lots of other knowledgeable folks here as well so don't dispair... sounds like it be fixed. Good luck!

[Karen Mac]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

Lady Eye is right, you can get alot done in 60 days. First pick how you want to build, you might want to look at the shopping carts like soholaunch, cubecart, oscommerce etc. These allow importing of products and categories with a csv file, avoiding having to redo all those product pages. However, the pages will have a new name. Your home page wont lose rank, but inner ones will. You can also do 301 redirects from page to page, or redirect them all to your home page or your category pages and not lose your traffic tho. Its simple to do for when the time comes. The only real problem with using builders is that they do require the use of a domain, so you will be live, but with planning you could get your site totally moved in about 4 hours using the shopping cart builders.

Lady Eye is also correct in that you dont want duplicate sites. I would maintain the domain but redirect it to the one, rather than have content on both.

Just out of curiosity, is your hosting midphase? I heard a big rumble coming from that area...about 2 months ago that they were shutting down.

Karen

[mikejust]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

Gee,, I am OVER WHELMED...by your response.. wish I had been here with Voda Host years before now... It will take some time for me to try to understand what you all have just advised... Tonight I will read and ponder and be back here tomorrow.. Thanks for the response and allowing me to sleep tonight..

Mike Just- Kansas

[Bethers]

Re: Losing my 7 year old website

OK, they all want me to jump in, I will.

First, what webbuilder did you use to make the site? It could be as simple as moving the website over - without any loss at all - if that can be done.

If you do have to rebuild - yes it will be somewhat daunting with all those pages, but if you use a storebuilder - and up your products with excel files, it wouldn't be as daunting - as the reason for all the pages are the products.

Your home page, if rebuilt, will not lose ranking unless you take out the keywords it is being found for.

The problem here - is we can't answer without more info from you - and IF you have to completely rebuild, then, yes, you need to make some immediate decisions to do so - including how you want to build the site - using what builder etc.

Yes, VH is a great hosting company- you wouldn't do wrong to host here - and if you host here - you'll have lots of options how you build. But you don't have lots of time to make that decision.