New to Zen Cart - Looking for proper setup from the start

[thewebscaper]

I'm new to Zen Cart. After doing tons of reading, including purchasing the zencart e-book, I'm recommending that a client of mine migrate their very successful, active online store from Americart to Zen Cart.

I've searched the forum and FAQs for these answers, and have not quite found what I need to know and would very much appreciate someone guiding me in the right direction.

I apologize for the length, but I wanted to give clear, pertinent info the first time around :)

My client's site is an active online store, we'll call the domain www.onlinestore.com. Their current shopping cart is Americart. The site is currently hosted on a Windows server.

I've recommended to client that they move the site to Blue Host (any red flags there?) so it is on Linux. The current site can't be moved to the Linux site as it is all windows/asp code.

The plan is to keep onlinestore.com up and running; set up the new site with Zen Cart on the new server where we can fully test it with no disruption to the current store. Can't do a local installation, as my client is 2 hours away, needs to be able to give feedback during development and see the site.

MY recommendation at first was to register www.onlinestore.NET, set everything up there, and then when it's ready to go, switch the DNS from old host to the www.onlinestore.net site, with masking of the URL so no matter what the customer would see www.onlinestore.COM. Client does not want to use the .net domain other than for setup/testing.

But now I'm second guessing and am all confused. I would very much appreciate some guidance on the best way to set up a Zen Cart site for an existing business with as little downtime as possible. Things that confuse me:

-- if I register onlinestore.NET and set up the hosting account in that domain name, the actual site name will become the .net one, which I'm thinking isn't good. Even if we mask the URL, I don't think it's the right way to go.

-- if I register onlinestore.net and set the site up with that domain, I'm going to have a problem with SSL, as I ultimately want the site to be onlinestore.COM. To set the store up and test, the SSL would have to be in the .net name. (not sure how it would work if I set the hosting account up in the onlinestore.COM name and just don't redirect DNS...maybe that would work?)

--can I just set the new hosting account up in the .COM name and work with whatever IP address or temp URL Blue Host will give me? In searching this forum I saw some horror cases where when trying to change the domain, files weren't working.

Any help would be appreciated. If there is another thread that explains this, I did not search the correct terms as I couldn't find it; I saw a few that touched on this but were trying to fix the problems after the fact; didn't see anyone cover how to set it up right in the first place.

Thanks so much in advance!

[kobra]

This can be setup without a domain name

[stevesh]

You might be overthinking this a little. I have a separate domain that I use for test sites and for doing exactly what you're describing. I just install Zencart in a subdirectory of that site, get everything working, and then move it to its eventual domain when it's ready.

The only thing you can't test on the build site is, as you mentioned, the SSL, but I haven't had many problems with SSL certificates, so it's just a matter of the site being down a few minutes longer after the move to test that.

[kobra]

You might be overthinking this a little.

Note OP desires to relocate to a linux sserver but not bring down current win cart while setting up ZenCart

[Kim]

Set the shop up on the new server using the IP address ( everything except the SSL) - Get it working and tested. When ready to go, put both shops down for maintenance, switch the DNS to the new shop, change the Zen Cart configs to the correct URL, install the SSL, test again, then set the new shop to live.

Don't forget to do 301 redirects from the old URLs.

[thewebscaper]

Thanks, everyone with all of the responses - I am so impressed by the Zen Cart community and this forum. I'm used to forums where half the posts are never responded to!

I don't doubt that I'm over-thinking Most of my clients are new sites, and the ones that aren't are simple static sites that I can easily set up parallel to the existing site. Since this client requires a change of host and we're dealing with a large product inventory, I want to make sure I do it right.

Setting the new hosting account up and using the IP address is fine (do I have to request a dedicated IP address from Blue Host? Usually the shared hosts give me crazy temp URLs). If it's that easy to set up using the IP, that certainly works for me.

One more question:

I've never used/installed a SSL (the carts I've set up were third-party that processed through their servers). I read somewhere (in the ebook, I think?) that I should purchase and install the SSL before configuring Zen Cart, but if we go the plan as proposed here, I wouldn't want to do that right? But at what point should I purchase and install the cert? Is there anything I need to know about SSL installation? (if this should be posed as a new thread I can certainly do that!)

Again thank you all for your posts, it just makes me even more certain that the decision to use Zen Cart is the right one.

[kobra]

I've never used/installed a SSL

There are 6 basic steps and depends upon the account manager provided by a host

Decide on "exact" domain form - - domain name or www.domain name

Create private key
create CSR
Use CSR to purchase a cert
After issued - - upload cert
Install ssl host = = many hosts have to do this for you and might be a charge

[Kim]

( use the www version of your domain - it will save you headaches in the future)

[thewebscaper]

Thanks all, again, this list is really helpful!

I purchased the SSL through Blue Host and it appears that they did the installation, etc., for me. I put it in the domain name with www. Since we're using the IP address only right now (the main domain hasn't been transferred yet) I can't test it, but hopefully when the time comes it will all work as intended!

Now, getting into the core of learning how to style, add products, configure everything... so far, quite fun.

Thanks again!