Does the move affect serps in any way?

It shouldn't if you do it right. Make sure you keep the old site live while the DNS propagates to the new IP#. Users and bots should see one site or the other during the propagation. It should be a seamless transition.

The engines are all domain name-based, not IP based, so unless there's a major glitch in the move... or maybe class-C linking issues... there's no reason for a change in serps. Even if there is a temporary glitch, the engines will generally check back before they'll re-rank you.

I generally change capitalization of a word in the home page title so I know which site I'm seeing.

I should mention that on the last site I moved, which was about two weeks ago, I got what I thought was strange bit of advice from the DNS management company, which was not to change the TTL (time to live) setting on the current domain name server. Common wisdom is to reduce it down to something small, like 15-minutes, and then wait till that kicks in before changing the DNS. This is to reduce propagation time. The DNS management company (we're putting in fail-over DNS) said that this is where they see a lot of errors made, and they advised leaving things alone.

We had a 48-hr TTL setting on the old DNS, a long time as TTL settings go, but I figured the company knew its business so I followed their advice. It was a completely smooth transition. As I said, if both sites are operational as you're doing the changeover, you should always see one server or the other.

Thanks for the reply.

I will be working on the site on the vps account using the ip address, while keeping the old site live. Do search engines see the second site? or not until I update the DNS?

I will be working on the site on the vps account using the ip address, while keeping the old site live. Do search engines see the second site? or not until I update the DNS?

Not until you update the DNS, but to be safe I'd use robots.txt to block the second site until you flip the switch. I also use a dummy "under construction" index.html page and temporarily rename my actual index page "index2.html" or whatever.

I have very occasionally seen IP# urls in the serps, and I assume that happened because someone linked to the IP# and it was accessible to the bots.

Also, start the switch around 2am or so on a Saturday morning Pacific time (yahoo, msn, google) when search queries are reduced. In just a few hours you will see if there are any problems. Make sure your new host has 24/7 support or a great admin that is available on the weekend in case something goes wrong. This way, by noon on Saturday, you know of any problems and can fix them with an extra day (Sunday) to see everything propogated properly.

Cheers,

CaboWabo

I'll be checking my site as I update it. Will using google toolbar give away my ip to google?

Also, start the switch around 2am or so on a Saturday morning Pacific time (yahoo, msn, google) when search queries are reduced.

CaboWabo - I'd thought the same as you on this, but again, got some additional advice from my DNS management company that made sense and I followed it....

You and they agree about the tech support, but for that reason they suggested moving during business hours, right in the middle of the week, when the best tech support people are on duty and likely to be on duty the next day. They were concerned about DNS problems, btw (like mistyping a server address), not about hosting problems.

Fortunately, we didn't have any problems, and I don't know how I would have felt about this advice if we had... but the DNS company has seen a lot of moves, so I've got to assume they know where problems usually occur.

As far as the engines go, the move is totally invisible to them... Again, if you have your old and new sites both up and working, DNS propagation is such that users and bots will see one site or the other.