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Checklist before going live with your ShopSite store
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Last Updated
7th of August, 2009

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Moving your existing site to LexiConn can be a seamless process with no downtime, no interruption in orders, and no negative effects on search-engine indexing and page rank, as long as you follow the correct procedure.

Here is a simple checklist you can use to make certain your migration is simple and problem-free:

Going-Live Checklist


1. Make sure that any email accounts you are currently using are set up on our servers:

Even though your email accounts will not work for outside mail until you go live with your site, you will want to have them set up before changing your nameservers to avoid losing mail.

You will find specific information on setting up email accounts at LexiConn in the following knowledgebase articles:


2. Set up and Test all links and images

Your new ShopSite store will be installed to a unique IP address on our servers and your account will be accessible on the frontend and the backend through the IP address.

If you are transferring an existing ShopSite to LexiConn, in most cases we will be moving a copy of your existing ShopSite database which will transfer your existing pages and products, as well as your files, images, etc... You will want to make certain that all images and files transferred without an issue and that all the paths to your images/links did not change.

3. Set up and Test Shipping and Payment Options

If we are transferring your ShopSite database to our servers, your existing shipping and payment options should be retained; however, you will want to place a test order (using a live credit card if using a realtime payment gateway) to make certain the shipping options are returned as you expect and that the payment is processed without a problem.

If you are setting up a new online store, you will need to decide on how you will process payments in ShopSite (gateway, Paypal, etc...), setup payment processing, and make sure you have configured your tax and shipping options. You will also want to place a test order to make certain that your shipping options and payment processor are configured correctly.

Before placing a test order, you will want to go to Commerce Setup->Payment in your Backoffice, click the "Configure Processor" button, and make certain "Display Error Details is checked. This will ensure that you will be able to view the error code if there is a problem processing your test order.

You will also want to make sure ShopSite is set to use the correct email address for order notifications. This address is set in Preferences->Hosting Service - Merchant e-mail address in the Backoffice. If you would like order notifications sent to more than one email address you can enter each of them on a separate line in the "Order notifications Cc:" box on the same page.

Finally, you will want to make sure the '"My Store" URL:' is set to the home page you are currently using (also set in Preferences->Hosting Service). This is the page that opens when you click the "My Store" icon in the Backoffice, and will be used by ShopSite as a "return to store" link, as well as a home page link in email receipts and other customer correspondence.


4. Test All forms on your site

If you have any forms on your site (such as a "Contact Us" form) make sure that it is working properly. These forms require a server-side script that will usually not be transferred with your files when your site is moved over. We have two server-side scripts (formmail.cgi and formmail.php) that you can use to facilitate sending form data to your email address. Details on using our formmail scripts can be found in our knowledgebase:



5. Set up 301 Redirects if Necessary

If you are transferring an existing site and your pages have been indexed by search engines it is essential that the URL of your pages remain exactly the same. If the filename or the path to your page changes in any way it will be seen as a new page by search engines and lose all page rank.

For example, if your original home page URL was:

http://www.yourdomain.com/index.htm

and your new home page URL is:

http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html

When you go live with your site, the search engines will index your site, no longer find index.htm, drop the page from their indexes, then find index.html, and index it as a brand new page, even if the content is identical to your original home page.

If you need to change the filename or path to any of your pages, a 301 redirect may be put in place, notifying search engines that a page on your site has been permanently moved to a new location. Search engines will then transfer page rank assigned to your original page to the new page.

Information on setting up a 301 redirect can be found here in our knowledgebase:



6. When you are ready to go live, update your nameservers:

You can either log in to your domain registrar update the nameservers to our nameservers:

ns.serverhost.net
ns2.serverhost.net
ns3.serverhost.net

(If your registrar only allows two nameservers to be listed, you should list the first two)

Or, you may provide us with your registrar login information so that we can update the nameservers for you.


7. Let us know that you have changed your nameservers

Once this nameserver update is complete, please let us know that your have changed your DNS. We can then schedule replacing the IP number with your actual domain name in all settings, URLs, and pages.


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