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On February 6, I initiated a website and domain transfer for both my primary “inspired4uministries.com” and my secondary “joannemeekins.com” websites to a new web host, HostGator.com. This process that I was very new to, created a ripple effect of technical challenges and lack of website public access that I had not considered. Many of the links on my secondary site, especially on my 'Services' page, were linked to my primary site.
This was unfortunate because my primary site and related links opened to a HostGator error page, during this up to seven-day site-transfer time period. Had I known, I would have recreated my website before initiating the transfers so as not to have had any down time. I also found that my website email address was no longer receiving external emails. But, thank God I was able to set up a new email with the same address through my new web host.
There is a learning curve needed for this type of endeavor from a novice like me, who had to go though the tutorial videos and articles, live chats and customer reps. My mind was overloaded during the days I strove to figure it all out. However, I remained optimistic and trusted that God was working all things together for my good. So I released thoughts of lost website traffic, potential clients and customers, and faithful visitors. And I embraced the fact that I possibly needed to begin again and recreate something new, bigger and better.
I ended up copying the content from my original Weebly.com website to paste in my Hostgator site I recreated using the Weebly Site Builder tool. I also used my new web host tutorials, to upgrade and export my free Inspired 4 U WordPress.com blog to WordPress.org; and then import to new web host as http://inspired4uministries.com/blog and redirect the “joannemeekins.com” domain name to http://inspired4uministries.com. Existing subscribers from the other site were instructed to subscribe at this new location in order to receive new updates and posts.
Domain transfers were completed and website recreated by February 17, 2014. Thank you God for new beginnings. http://inspired4uministries.com. Post Script
It is now October 18, 2016, two and a half years since that first transfer, and I am now in the process of recreating my site once again to transfer back to weebly.com from hostgator.com, using the Weebly blog feature instead of WordPress.org. Going through this in 2014 and helping two of my clients create new websites and redirect their domains in 2016 made the process easier the second time around. I thank God for good customer service, tutorials and experience in greatly reducing the challenges associated with website and domain transfers, redirects and recreations.
In this process, I redirected my domain names for two newly designed websites:
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