Keep domain name pointed to old site while preparing the new site

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I have an active website at one.sohistory.org. The domain name is sohistory.org. Our organization has a Google site as sohs.org. I don’t need to maintain any files currently under sohistory.org or the other subdomains, except for one.sohistory.org. Sohistory.org was a Drupal 6 site and one.sohistory.org is a Drupal 7 site.
We wish to keep sohs.org domain registration active with GoDaddy and point to the inmotionhosting nameservers.
Here are my questions:
1. If we change our inmotionhosting domain name to sohs.org, I assume I have to upload all of our files to a new database. When I tried to set up a development website, I had to do it a few files at a time because our website is large. If there is an easier way to do this, I’d like to know.
2. If I upload files, etc. to the new domain, sohs.org, is there a way I can view the website and complete the process before I redirect from the current sohs.org to the new one? Naturally, I want the new site functioning and complete prior to making it public, but I don’t understand how I could work on it if it has the same URL.
3. If this process won’t work, I’m willing to use the current sohistory.org as our domain name, and keep sohs.org just for our email if I can do a redirect from sohs.org to sohistory.org. I believe this would still require uploading all of the files from one.sohistory.org to sohistory.org. If that’s correct, I’d still appreciate knowing if there is an easier way.
4. EMAIL: We also need to point inmotionhosting to Google to keep our current gmail accounts active. They look like this (for example): [email protected]. I believe I understand how to set inmotionhosting up to go to those email addresses. Would there be any conflict because they would share the sohs.org name?
If I need to pay for some assistance in making this transition, please just let me know.
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johnpaulb-imhs1
Hello, Thank you for contacting us about keeping a domain name pointed to an old site while preparing the new site. 1. If you "change (y)our inmotionhosting domain name to sohs.org," it will not affect your site, unless you also change the DNS at GoDaddy to point to us. Also, here is a link to our guide on How to migrate your website FROM another host TO InMotion Hosting. 2. You can view/work on your website on our server before pointing, by performing a Host File Modification. 3. A Host File Modification will definitely work, and your email will be handled by the server your MX record points to. 4. Before you point your domain's DNS to us, be sure to setup Google's MX records on our server. This will refer email for your domain to your gmail. Let us know if you have any further questions. Thank you, John-Paul