Going live with a website often involves a change in hosting providers. In our case we host almost all of the sites we develop. When a new site goes live we begin hosting it on our servers. Newfangled, like almost all website hosting providers, requires a certain amount of administrative information to be in place before setting up a new site on our servers. Of course there are financial matters that need to be settled (everyone, after all, wants to get paid), but there are also important contact records that need to be in place. Websites are extremely vital systems that companies depended on 24x7x365. Yet every computer (including web servers) requires some amount of system level maintenance from time to time. Usually such maintenance does not affect the accessibility of website, but occasionally access has to be briefly turned off. We usually schedule this kind of maintenance for very low traffic times. And although such instances may only happen once or twice a year, because websites are globally accessible, what's low traffic for U.S. clients may be high traffic for European or Asian clients. So whenever server maintenance needs to be done, we send out announcements to all clients in advance of the downtime. After all, even if the downtime is just a few minutes late at night, it very well may be the very moment a prospect in Malaysia is trying to view the site!

Because of these matters, it's Newfangled's policy that before any site can go live on our servers, we must have client contact information on file. We have a client set up form we provide to gather the information we need at the beginning of each new project. Sometimes though, little details like paperwork fall through the cracks. Nevertheless, if we don't have this information on file we can't put a site live. So get those forms back and satisfy our voracious bureaucratic requirements so that after all the effort to get a site ready to go live, it isn't hindered by paperwork!

Lastly with regard to administrative details, once a site goes live, it's really considerate to inform the previous host that the site has been moved. Depending on DNS arrangements it's entirely possible for a re-designed site to launch without the previous host ever being informed. Aside from not getting billed from two parties for hosting, letting the other host know allows them to archive the old site and make room for new ones.


Great effort has been spent developing and editing content. Links and images have been checked and rechecked. Content, forms and data have been tested on the live site. Page titles are perfect. A brilliant domain name strategy has been implemented. Nice job. The new site is live and right on time. Breathe a deep sigh of relief, take a gander at the finished product and enjoy.