Hosting Migration: Do THIS Before You Move

Setting up a website involves multiple steps, and you might choose a hosting provider that worked for you in the beginning but you eventually outgrow. Some hosting providers have limits to their plans, for example, and once your traffic grows, their bandwidths might no longer meet your needs.

The good news is that if this happens, you can migrate to a new hosting provider. In fact, you probably should do so before you reach this point if you feel like it will happen. Before migrating, however, you need to understand the process; it’s quite technical, and ignoring this could result in destroying your entire website (and business!).

In this complete guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about hosting migration. We’ll show you how to migrate safely, along with highlighting the steps you should follow to prepare your website in advance.

What Does Hosting Migration Involve?

Hosting migration involves moving your website from one server to another. It involves two main areas: Transferring domains and migrating your files.

Let’s look at both of them.

Transferring Domains

When you migrate your domain from one service to another, you’ll use a different server based on that provider’s plans. As a result, you’ll need to cancel your old subscription and sign up for a new one. You get complete access to that hosting provider’s services within your subscription level.

Your domain pricing might differ once you’ve moved it to another server, so it’s worth checking to see if this is the case. In some cases, you’ll be able to use it as your free domain for a year – which is a nice bonus. Make sure that any security certificates, such as your SSL certificate, also transfer.

Moving Files

In addition to moving your website hosting across to a new server, the migration will involve transferring your files and folders. This includes all of your website data, such as the images in your media library and any articles you’ve published.

Once the migration has been completed, you might need to re-add the images that were previously in your articles. However, this isn’t always the case. It may happen in particular if you’ve bought a new domain, so make sure you check all pages once the transfer has been finalized.

Why Should You Migrate Your Hosting?

Migrating your website hosting can have multiple advantages. First and foremost, you may notice faster website speeds when you transfer to a new provider. This is particularly true if you bought a plan without thinking about servers’ impacts on your speed before. You’ll get this when you have more bandwidth, along with if you choose private hosting instead of shared.

Another reason to migrate your hosting is to access other benefits a new provider could give you. For example, some website hosting providers will have better customer support – which becomes more and more important as your website grows.

Through migrating your hosting, you may also notice an improvement in your website’s user experience. This comes largely through increased page speeds, but it’s also sometimes the result of switching your content management system and having better customization. As a result, you may notice more satisfied customers and better search engine rankings.

What Are the Risks of Hosting Migration?

While hosting migration has several advantages, you must proceed with caution. It’s very risky, and you can run into significant problems if you aren’t careful

One of the biggest dangers when you migrate your hosting is that you could accidentally harm your website. If files don’t transfer properly, you might notice that your site no longer functions as it should. Moreover, you could accidentally remove pages from Google and other search engines.

It’s also important to understand the risk to your domain itself. If it isn’t transferred properly, you may no longer have access. It’s very important that you delete the account with your old provider AFTER verifying that everything has successfully transferred.

Is It Safe to Do Hosting Migration Myself?

While you can perform hosting migration on your own, you should refrain from doing so unless you’re experienced in doing so. This is a highly technical process, and the risks are far too high to take it lightly.

It’s much better to work with an expert to migrate your hosting. Doing so is not only safer; it’ll also likely save you time and money. Some hosting providers, such as Verpex, offer free migrations too; the process doesn’t have to be expensive.

How to Prepare Your Website and Domain for Hosting Migration

Before migrating your website, you need to make sure that everything is prepared as it should be. Following a checklist is the best way to do this.

Below, you’ll find the most important steps you should follow to prepare your website and domain for hosting migration.

Back Up Your Website

Your top priority should be to ensure that migrating your website is as risk-free as possible. As a fundamental part of this, backing up your website needs to be the first thing you do.

Backing up a WordPress website is easier than you think. Several services and plugins will help you do precisely this. Since you’ll often need to deal with disk space, this is the perfect opportunity to declutter your site and remove everything you don’t need – including old media.

After migrating to your new server, backing up your website should be part of your general site maintenance if it isn’t already. You can automate backups so that you never need to worry about missing a day.

Export All Your Important Information

In addition to backing up your website, exporting your most important information is also a good idea. By doing this, you’ll ensure that you always have a copy of your data – even if something went wrong with your online backups for whatever reason.

You can export your site data with an FTP or SFTP client.

Prepare for Downtime

Ideally, you’ll fulfil your website migration without any downtime. However, it’s always a good idea to prepare for any bad things that might happen.

You can prepare for downtime by warning customers that they might not be able to access your products and services within a certain time period. It’s also wise to talk to your new hosting provider to ensure that the process is smooth as it can possibly be.

Sign Up for Your New Hosting Provider

As part of your hosting migration, you’ll need to sign up for a membership with your new hosting provider. Spend some time to assess your options and pick the one you think will work best for your needs. Assess not only their website speed, but also other benefits like free backups and round-the-clock support.

Do not delete your old hosting account until you’ve verified that your domain and everything else has successfully migrated. If you do, you may get locked out of your old domain. Besides being an issue for your website domain, you may also encounter problems with any associated email addresses.

Get a Specialist to Migrate Your Website

Once you’ve completed the initial steps, you’re ready to migrate your website. Rather than doing it yourself, you should get a specialist with experience in moving sites to a new server. In most cases, the best way to do this is via your new hosting provider.

If your hosting provider doesn’t offer migration, look for someone with experience moving sites like yours across different servers.

Verify That Everything Is Working Post-Migration

After finalizing your hosting migration, be sure to confirm that everything is working like it should. Check that your sitemap is still indexed; this can be an issue if you’re migrating to a new domain in particular.

It’s also important to ensure that people can access your website after the migration. To test this, use an incognito tab and perform a Google search, before clicking on one of your links. If that works, confirm that everything is up and running by entering your homepage’s address in the URL bar and hitting the Enter key.

Other aspects you should check are:

• Images and videos

• Forms

• Links (some might be broken, so be sure to check these out)

If something isn’t working as it should be, contact your hosting provider to get it sorted as soon as possible.

Good to Know: Remember to Register Your Domain With Your New Provider

Your provider may do this for you, but if you’re doing a manual migration, you should make sure that you register your domain with the new provider. Where you register your domain name is very important and can impact multiple factors, including your search rankings.

To register your domain with the new provider, you’ll have to get the required information for this. Your hosting provider should have the documentation required to do this.

Summary

Hosting migration is often an essential part of scaling your business, and you’ll need to pick a new provider if your current one isn’t meeting your needs. However, it’s very important that you understand the risks associated with migrating. Preferably, you should get someone to do it for you.

Frequently Asked Questions