Ensuring Your Website Will Load Correctly Before Updating Your Nameservers

How Can I Ensure My Website Will Load Correctly Before Updating the DNS?

Transfer the necessary files you want to see to your new hosting account.  At this point, you can look at those files and how they function by adding your new hosting account's IP address to your computer's hosts file.  The host file location varies depending on your operating system (OS).

OS

Host File Location

Windows (8, 7, XP, etc.)

C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts

Macintosh OS X

/etc/hosts

Linux

/etc/hosts

Use the following format to add an entry for the hosting account:

[your account's IP address] [your fully qualified domain name]

For example:

12.0.0.1 example.com

If you'd like to add the www version, place it on the same line as shown:

12.0.0.1 example.com www.example.com

How you identify your IP address varies depending on which type of web hosting account you have with Hostwinds.