Transferring seven domains is an exercise in juggling, timing, and patience, not to mention frustration.  Frustration of learning a new control panel UI.  Frustration of knowing that some e-mail may fall into the great bit-bucket in the sky.  Frustration of e-mailing everone's alternate address to give instructions of how to access the new mail server, new webmail, new temporary passwords, new FTP accounts, etc.  The process can easily take a full day of coordination, especially if you hadn't done it in a while.  Because I've done it so many times these past two weeks (you'll read why), here's a list that you may find helpful if you find yourself in the same situation.  There may be tools out there to automate some of this, but remember -- this is for hosting on a budget (one of the reasons you may need to resort to this more than once), and you may not want to spend the money for utilities you may only use once or twice:

1. Try Demos: Try out the sample control panel on the hosts' sites.  If you can't play around with a sample before joining, don't use them as a hosting company -- even if you already are familiar with the tools.  Any company who doesn't give someone an opportunity to experiment with their tools before joining them is festering with many more problems that you'll discover after you've already committed to them.  Make sure you can play around with their web hosting control panel and their webmail client.
2. Select a Host: This is hard, and will need a post of its own one day.  I looked at about a dozen before making my first (mistaken) selection.  Just keep in mind one thing -- all these "web host review" sites should be taken with a grain of salt.  I have a hunch that several of them are plants.  You'll also find both good and bad reviews for about every "budget" hosting company.  It's the nature of the beast.  If possible, get a personal recommendation.  I wish I took that advice two weeks ago.  On a budget, it is quite rare to find a host with telephone support.  Some provide real-time online help, but too often that is just pre-sale, or it just seems too "robotic".  Most likely, you'll only get a first-line technician through this method.  It's even rarer to get a direct IM account for a support person (which ASPnix did provide for me).  E-mail support is the most you can really expect in a budget plan.  Normally, you'll only get a guarantee of 24 hour turnover, but you'll want urgent requests to be answered in an hour or two.  This is something you can only really test out after you sign up.  Never go by the pre-sale response time.  That will often be a lot quicker in order to obtain the sale.  GoDaddy was one of the few hosts I found that actually had very good phone support (which they encourage you to use).  But they have other issues, which I'll discuss in a later post.
3. Sign Up: Pick a plan, and sign up for it.  If you don't know exactly what you need capacity-wise, you can usually upgrade (or downgrade) later.  But if you're facing a crunch, like I did (e-mail was down for days), you may not have any choice but to make a quick decision.  Even if you are parking temporarily until you can catch your breath -- sort of like renting a house when selling your old house while buying a new house.  Be aware that some hosts set your account up immediately, while others can take up to 24 hours.
4. List of Old IP Addresses: Make note of the IP address(es) of your current sites -- for both the web address and the e-mail server address.  You'll need this to figure out early on when the domain name server change actually occurs.  More on this, later.
5. List of Domains: Make a list of all your hosted domains; whether they're actual domains or just parked (aliased) domains pointing to another of your domains.
6. List of E-Mail Accounts: For each domain, make a list of all the e-mail accounts hosted at each domain.  That includes all actual accounts, all forwarded accounts (and the addresses they're forwarded to), all groups (addresses that forward e-mails to multiple other accounts), and settings for each address.  You will not have access to passwords, so after you switch, you will have to assign temporary passwords to each account.
7. List of Secondary E-Mail Accounts: Get secondary e-mail addresses from each person who has one of the above addresses.  This will be the only way you'll be able to send them details about the new account.  Yep -- Catch-22.
8. List of FTP Accounts: For each domain, make a list of each FTP account and the folder rights each of these accounts have.  Yep...you've only begun the process...
9. List of Websites: For each domain, make a list of each website, sub-web, virtual directory, technology required (.NET 1.1 / .NET 2.0 / PHP / CGI, etc), folder rights, database info (ODBC, connection strings, etc.), and any other server settings you may need to propogate to the new host.
10. Lists of Everything Else: I covered the most common options, but you may use other tools, such as mailing lists, stats, SharePoint sites, etc.  Make a detailed list of everything.
11. Stop Updateable Sites: If there are any sites that you want to retain history for, such as sites that log visits, create accounts, take orders, etc., replace the home page with a "temporary down" page explaining the situation.  Make it clear that you should be back up within 24 hours, and if necessary (especially for business sites), an alternate way to contact you in the meantime.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, you want to communicate very clearly with your customers.  Be honest with them about the situation.  Do NOT keep them in the dark.
12. Backup Sites: If you haven't done so lately, make a complete current, folder by folder backup of all of your sites.  That includes any folders containing log files you may want to keep (such as for dasBlog and other similar sites), database files (that may be in a separate db folder off the root of each domain, etc.).
13. Backup Backups: If the copy of your sites that you just downloaded to your hard drive is your only copy, then you know what you need to do next . Backup, backup, backup.  Use whatever method you are comfortable with, and make TWO backups.  My rule of thumb is to always make at least two backups.  If you make only one backup, Murphy's law will ensure that it will always be bad.  Two backups always seem to result in two good backups.  Who knows why?  But it always seems to be true.  One of life's mysteries.

In my next post, I'll continue the list from the point of setting up your sites at the new host.

My Web Hosting Nightmares, Part 1 - Background
My Web Hosting Nightmares, Part 3 - Starting With a New Host
My Web Hosting Nightmares, Part 4 - Completing the Transfer
My Web Hosting Nightmares, Part 5 - My Continuing Story