Could my Hoster steal my Website?

Hey guys,

how can I be sure that my hoster couldnt steal my website when its get big?

I bought my VPS + Domain there. I think its easy for the hoster to steal the site because of making money with them.

go for reputatable one, not some reseller

How can I know whether he is a reseller or not

Really reputable one's are not resellers. That's why they are reputable.

I think he means go for popular ones like Bluehost, iPage etc. They have a reputation to maintain.

sure they can ... would be no problem.

For my safety I can make Backup of the Database but which details I have to safe for the Domain.

You should never buy a domain from some hosting company. Ask them to transfer the domain to your registrar of choice.

registrar of my choice whould be for example godaddy?

jason212 said:

registrar of my choice whould be for example godaddy?

Click to expand...

Namecheap is safer. I haven't thought about anything else when choosing a domain, because I like their customer support.

Buy the domain from another provider then link. Also i wouldn't use ipage or similar. I'm not saying they will steal your site but they have bad support and performance. (at least a year ago. don't now right now)

Can I transfer my domain afterwards to namecheap?

It also depends on the TOS when you signed up. Some shady hosts contractually own the domain name. Overall, good advice above: deal only with reputable partners and register your domain name separately with a specialized registrar.

Okay I will ask my Hoster and transfer my domain to namecheap.

After transferring it when my provider goes down I can add my domain to other VPS and go online right?

Never register and host your site on same hosting. Always register your domains on your own account (namecheap is my recommended domain registar).
All you can lose is if hosting suspend your site and didn't want to give the files or if there is some "natural" damage to hosting hardware and data cant be restored.

jason212 said:

Okay I will ask my Hoster and transfer my domain to namecheap.

After transferring it when my provider goes down I can add my domain to other VPS and go online right?

Click to expand...

Having someone steal your website doesn't happen too often. I worked for one of the big companies for a long time and the only times I seen it was with the website owner's spouse or webmaster. Still... if you signed up through a reseller, that might be concerning because they could just be any joe shmoe, and resellers have access to login to your accounts. I don't think they could get away with stealing your domain name, and if they did, you could get it back easily. Buttttttt.. They could still login and snoop through your website files, and download them. Not to mention going into your config.php files and taking your database passwords (which sometimes people use the same password for everything).

Anyways, your domain is probably already through a reputable company, because it's not easy to become a "domain registrar". A reseller is just re-selling a reputable company's services. So there might be some away you can contact the registrar or change your passwords so the reseller doesn't have any access.

But if you wanted to be sure, you can just do the following:

1. Copy all the files and database files to your PC.

2. Signup with a new web host/VPS and re-upload the files and databases onto their servers.

3. Ask your new host for their nameservers and/or IP address.

4. Through your existing registrar (or maybe control panel on your old hosting account), preferably update your nameservers to your new host.. if you can't find that, then change the A record to whatever IP address your VPS is on.

5. At this point your Web Hosting should be changed. But now contact your current domain registrar and unlock your domain and obtain the authorization code. Also make sure you have access to the administrative email address on the domain.

6. Go to the new company you want to use and initiate a transfer (and pay for it, etc).

7. They're going to send you an email asking for the authorization code, you enter it, and then after some days, the domain will be transferred.

A final note is... once the domain is transferred, your nameservers will probably get updated, or will need to be updated. It's different for every provider. Sometimes it gives you the option of choosing where you want your nameservers during the transfer. So you will want to make sure that the DNS is all setup correctly, before and after the transfer to make sure your website works fine. Alternatively you could use "freedns.afraid.org" nameservers and have them manage your DNS for you.

And just as a clarification, the nameservers are not where your website is being hosted. When you change where the nameservers are pointing to for your domain, you are just changing who manages your domain's zonefile (IP/A records, etc). So you could technically leave it at the original company the whole time, but once you cancel your account with them then they will probably delete your zonefile and your site will no longer work.

jason212 said:

Okay I will ask my Hoster and transfer my domain to namecheap.

After transferring it when my provider goes down I can add my domain to other VPS and go online right?

Click to expand...

Haha sorry for the long post. Short answer to this is... You don't have to take down your website at all. As long as beforehand you get everything copied over, and update your DNS to point at the new company. Then transfer the domain and having the DNS all ready to go once it finishes transferring.

Finally when I transfer my domain to namecheap and keep the vps on my current provider it's okay?

jason212 said:

Finally when I transfer my domain to namecheap and keep the vps on my current provider it's okay?

Click to expand...

Do you mean... Transfer your domain to namecheap, but then keep your website hosted through your existing hosting company that you were worried about? If so, then yes you can definitely do that.

You can have your domain's registration anywheres, you just need to make sure your DNS (nameservers and/or IP) is pointing to your VPS. When your domain is transferred to namecheap, they will have a section for updating your DNS to where ever you want to point your domain to.

Why not register domain and hosting separately and go for a good domain hosting like namecheap or internetbs. Then there is no cause for concern.
But several people who have taken free domain hosting like from dot TK have said that when their sites get really famous then the hoster takes away their domain and sells it to others interested.
So, never ever go for these free domain type sites.

Just a note for those following along. If you registered your domain less than 60 days ago you have to wait 60 days to transfer to a new registrar. You can point it to a new host in the meantime but transferring is a different story.