I need help, but not related to development. I'm not sure where to post.

Enter Username Here

I am not even sure where or how to start this. (Mods please move this to the correct sub if this is not it, thank you.)

My fathers friend has a website for roughly 20 years. The domain is on Letshost. There is a company in Drogheda that he pays for hosting? maintenance I think. And he has paid shopify for their software, so afaik he pays the company in Drogheda for the whole lot per month.

He separately hosts his domain email account with somebody else e.g. info@thesamedomain.com

Recently, the person who I think set the whole thing up, has become less interested in keeping the email alive which is the most important to him or equally important as the shopify software. He doesn't want to keep paying the new email server prices which are €50 but per billing cycle not per month or week or year.

I am very minimally limited on this, but I would like to help him transfer his email hosting, but keep the rest as they are if it is even possible or if it is possible to move the whole lot away from letshost while keeping the crowd in Drogheda hosting everything. I am sorry that I don't have more information at the moment but should be able to get more if needed.

Short version is he would like to keep everything as is, but change the email host.

First thing I'd do is get a bill from the company in Drogheda and Let's Host and see what he's paying both for.

Let's host do an email only host for €60 per year or €110 for shared hosting and email. There are other Irish offerings out there including Spiral and Blacknight.

daymobrew

If he is paying Shopify that would imply that Shopify is hosting the website, not the crowd in Drogheda. Of course the shop portion could be on Shopify and other parts on other hosting (it should be possible to combine them on Shopify).

Are you willing to share the site url?

Enter Username Here

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122209041#Comment_122209041

Thanks, I am completely confused over how one domain is hosted and so many people or companies are looking after it.

I am taking advantage of the long weekend to see if the billing cycle falls on the end of or the start of the month. I am also trying to find out exactly who has what permissions, including my fathers friend who is supposed to be the owner, but he thinks he has no admin rights, which I don't think could be correct.

I apologise for my late reply, and thank you for your reply.

Enter Username Here

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122209991#Comment_122209991

Hi sorry I am not willing to share the url until I know more. As it isn't really my business other than him asking me to fix his emails. I think he paid shopify a fair bit of money at the start. I am under the impression that shopify are just providing the software that is hosted. But I admit that is because I really do not know how shopify works.

Is it possible that one company could be hosting the website and a completely different company could be hosting his email?

fritzelly

Hard to give advice without clear knowledge of the whole setup, so some assumptions…

The domain is hosted with LetsHost - cost could be from 10 -30 euro or so a year depending on extension, guessing .com so about a tenner a year

Shopify is not self hosted the domain has been pointed to their servers to handle traffic.

The email should have been set up at Letshost - unless you have multitudes of emails this should cost around ten euro a year.

Maybe he is paying someone to look after everything for him which with Shopify is probably not necessary unless he is completely clueless about running a website.

Enter Username Here

Thanks, clueless is correct. I'm not a lot better unfortunately.

Email is hosted by letshost, but by a friend of his who set it up years ago with multiple other domains that he was hosting on the same account. The friend has since let it lapse twice, as he no longer maintains them all, and he has to keep paying €50 for short periods, which is where the trouble starts.

He has no issues with the domain being hosted by the people in Drogheda nor the Shopify setup which could be the same people, I don't know.

I am just unsure the best route to take. The people in Drogheda would host his email but want a lot more than he thinks it is worth iirc. They want to charge something like €50-€60 per month.

I was thinking of transferring the domain to OVH or D9 Hosting just to have everything together and less complicated going forward as he plans to launch a new domain shortly while keeping the shopify software that he has paid for.

Would that transfer seamlessly if the hosting was paid for in advance of the transfer, and is that even the better option, or can he pay letshost €10 a year or thereabouts for the email that is already with them to transfer to his account and drop the friend with mutliple accounts?

It is very confusing, and I realise that i may not be making it any clearer, but that is all of the information I have. He cannot tell me any information that I have asked for, unless I know specifically which questions to ask, and then he can relay them. I have access to a letshost account, but that seems to be where the friend is hosting multiple accounts, so I may not have primary account holder access, I can find the email if I search but no inormation about the domain anywhere.

Thanks for all of the information so far, it has already helped me.

fritzelly

You need to speak to someone who can have access to all the information - where is the domain hosted, where is the email hosted etc.

You're asking for blind guesses on how to advise.

50-60 euro a month for hosting/email is ridiculous unless you are a mega corp.

OVH is fine for hosting but you need to know what you are doing to set up DNS etc

daymobrew

Call LetsHost and give them the limited info you have and ask if your idea (keeping email on LetsHost but in a new account) will work and ask how to do it without losing emails. The domain DNS may need to be updated (if you move email to another company it definitely will need to be updated).

Also enquire about moving the domain to a new account (to LetsHost might be easiest if email is kept there). You will need a code from the current domain holder (EPP code) to authorise the move.

Enter Username Here

Thanks everyone. I have asked him to call Letshost as they cannot talk to me.

I have found out that the company in Donegal hosts the site, Shopify host their software and letshost are where the domain was registered and are hosting his email.

Hopefully he can get it solved through them. Thank you all again.