What should you do before cancelling your web hosting package?

Cancelling your web hosting package affects more than just your website, which will no longer be accessible. You will also lose access to your website files, databases, email addresses and messages on the package, backups, and other services linked to your web hosting.

Be aware that once your hosting subscription has been cancelled, you will no longer be able to access any of these, and the backups will no longer be recoverable after a certain period. Email backups are retained for a maximum of 7 days, while backups of your website are retained for 14 to 30 days.

What exactly happens when you cancel your web hosting package?

When cancelling a package, you can always choose between ‘at the end of the contract’ or ‘immediately’. With ‘at the end of the contract’, the cancellation is only processed at the end of the current contract period. With ‘immediately’, the cancellation takes effect immediately after confirmation.

Once the cancellation is processed, a number of things immediately become apparent. The web hosting package is removed from your account, meaning that everything stored on your web hosting package is no longer available:

• Your website goes offline.
• Your website files, databases, and backups are deleted. 
• You no longer have access via SFTP or SSH.
• The email addresses you have on the hosting package are deleted. As a result, you can no longer receive emails, log in to your email addresses, or view your email messages.

There are also a few things you may not immediately think of:

• Visitors/customers of your website can no longer reach you through your website or email. For businesses, this can be problematic because you may miss out on potential new customers or communication about ongoing matters may be disrupted.
• Your SEO ranking will decrease. This means that the reputation you have built up in search engines will gradually decline.
• A Pro or Max web hosting package allows you to host multiple websites. Keep in mind that all websites on a package are deleted when you cancel the hosting package.

What can you do to reduce the impact?

We recommend three tips to reduce the impact of cancelling your web hosting:

1. Keep your domain name
   
   It is important to always keep your domain name. This way, you can always return to where you were as long as you still own your domain name. A cancelled domain name is placed in ‘Quarantine’ after cancellation. During this period, only the current owner can recover the domain name from the registry, for a fee. Recovering a cancelled domain name is often quite expensive compared to the annual cost of a domain name. 
   
   In addition, after approximately one month in quarantine (this varies per domain extension), the domain name becomes available for anyone to register. This means that you run the risk of someone else using your domain name. 
    
2. Make sure you remain reachable by email
   
   To prevent missing emails after cancelling your package, we recommend getting an email package after cancelling your web hosting. It is important to take this into account beforehand, as all your email addresses are deleted as soon as your web hosting package is cancelled.
   
   Make sure you back up your email messages so that you can import them later once you have a new email package and have created the email addresses again.
   
   An email package also allows you to forward visitors to your website to a new address, as the Forwarding service is included.
   
   Order an Email Only package 
    
3. Forward visitors and emails to a new address
   
   To forward visitors from your website to a new website, you can order our Forwarding service after cancelling your web hosting package. You can use this not only to forward visitors from your website to another website, but also to forward emails sent to your domain name to another email address.
   
   Order the Forwarding service 
    

Checklist before cancelling

Because everything on a web hosting package is deleted when you cancel it, it is important to make a backup of everything before you actually start the cancellation process. Even if you do not currently plan to use your website or email again, you may always change your mind later.

1. Back up your website files and database
   
   The article ‘Backups on web hosting packages’ explains step by step how to download backups of both your website files and database(s).
   You can also do this yourself using these two guides:
   - I want to manually back up a database on my web hosting package
   - I want to manually back up a website on my web hosting package
    
2. Back up your emails
   
   Whether or not you want to continue using email, it is always useful to make a backup of your email messages, as you will no longer be able to access them after cancellation. The following guides explain how to do this:
   - Outlook
   - Mail (macOS)
   - Thunderbird
    
3. Are you moving your website and email addresses?
   
   If you are moving your website to another hosting package, make sure you first transfer everything to the new hosting package. If you are moving your website to a different domain name, for example, use the article ‘Moving your website to another domain name’. The same applies to transferring emails. The guides in step 2 also explain how to import emails into a mailbox.
    
4. Is the DNS configured correctly?
   
   Make sure the DNS is configured correctly and points to the new web hosting package (A/AAAA records) and the correct email server (MX record), where applicable. Keep in mind that changes to DNS settings can take up to 24 hours to propagate worldwide. In practice, this is often much faster.
    
5. Does everything work as expected?
   
   Test everything first to make sure it works. Have you moved your website and email? Are you redirected to the new website when visiting your domain name? Are you receiving emails at your email address(es)?
    
6. Cancel the web hosting package
   
   Once you are sure that you have saved everything and will no longer use the web hosting package, you can proceed to cancel the package. This way, you can prevent unwanted data loss. Always make sure that you do not also cancel your domain name.
   
   

   Note: If you want to continue using your email addresses with TransIP, you can only purchase a new email package after cancelling your web hosting package. You can then create the email addresses again.

   After creating the email addresses, you can import your saved emails into the new mailboxes.