Switching Hosts

I'm looking to switch from my current host to a hostgator server. I'm not sure how to switch servers without losing my site. How would I go about switching servers without losing my sites content?

[tipoboy]

hostgator only copy your forum over to their servers, you have to point your domain name over to your new server. i had a few problems with my board as i ran php5 on my old server and they put me on a php4 server, i got switched over with no problem, even got an appology for their mistake, cant fault their customer service, even during the night to them as i'm 7 hours ahead lol

[lighti]

Yes if both servers are running some form of a Control Panel (cPanel, Plesk, etc) You are usually able to just transfer using the control panel software the entire account.

[DivisionByZero]

if you can get shell access on your old shared server, that makes it a LOT easier, since you can zip up your whole webroot and only have to download one file.

[edgecutioner]

^which is rare.. not alot of Shared hosts give out SSH access but still, he's right

[pickaweb]

Yes. I agree. Find out if you can get your site hosted on a server with the same type of control panel and they will import it very easily.