New user - temporary domain

[mort]

I am looking to move to bluehost - can I start an account with a temporary domain/subdomain name until I complete the transfer of the site, and then move the actual domain name?
Thanks,
Mort

[cbphoto]

Mort,

I don't think you need anything temporary.

Sign up, pay and give them your domain name(s). They will assign an address for your domain and give you the details. This will allow you to upload all your data. The site on BH won't be active until you trigger the IP address transfer with your IP address keeper (or whatever their called). I use Network Solution and once my data was uploaded and I was satisfied with my site, I logged onto Network Solutions and gave them my new IP address. It took effect world wide in less than 48 hours. Then I contacted my old hosting company and pulled the plug.

There is a little overlap of time in paying for two hosting companies, but only for a few weeks, or a month.

[dkinzer]

Sign up, pay and give them your domain name(s).
Unless you have a fairly simple site with no dynamic content, I assert that it is more complicated than that. I am in the middle of preparation for a host switch right now. My site at the current host is still active and I'm still testing the new site at BlueHost.

Although you could do as was suggested, I strongly recommend against it. The problem is that you really can't test your BlueHost site fully until the DNS propagation is complete (well, at least until it reaches the DNS servers that you use). As with everything else, there are two primary rules: #1 - anything that can go wrong will, #2 - every task takes longer to complete than you expected.

Also, if your site has database components (online store, forum, etc.) you need to think about what you're going to do during the DNS propagation time. There will be a period of up to 72 hours where both of your sites may get visitors at the same time. You probably don't want anyone doing something on the old site that updates the database after the new site has gone live. My plan is to modify the old site software to show content but to not allow actions that update the database. A message will be displayed indicating that a site transition is underway.

The existence of search engines complicates the transition, too. You probably don't want a search engine to index pages with the "transition" message on them. I plan to add code to my old site to render the site normally for search bots.

I did set up a temporary domain name. I believe that the minor additional cost is well worth it in order to facilitate an orderly transition with as little customer inconvenience as possible.