Moving your website to a new host without going offline

Almost every bad migration has the same cause: the nameservers were changed before the site worked on the new server. Do it in this order and the site never goes down, because at no point is the live domain pointing at something unfinished.

A week before

Lower your DNS TTL to 300 seconds at your current provider. TTL is how long the rest of the internet is allowed to cache your DNS answers. At the common default of 24 hours, a mistake takes a day to undo. At five minutes it takes five minutes. Change it early so the old, long TTL has expired everywhere by the time you switch.

Also: find out where your email is. If mail is handled by the same host as the website, the migration moves both and you will need the mailboxes copied too. If it is on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, note the MX records now so you can recreate them exactly.

The copy

Move the files and the database to the new server while the old one keeps serving traffic. Nothing is live yet, so take your time and check as you go:

• Files including hidden ones - .htaccess and .env are easy to miss and the site breaks without them.
• The database as a full dump, restored and then spot-checked. Confirm the row counts on your biggest tables match.
• Cron jobs, which live in the panel and not in your files, so no file copy brings them across.
• Mailboxes with folder structure and history, if mail is moving.

Test before the internet is watching

Edit the hosts file on your own computer to point the domain at the new server's IP. Your machine now sees the new site at the real domain name while everyone else still sees the old one. This is the single most useful trick in a migration, because it lets you test forms, logins, payments and SSL against the real hostname with zero risk.

Work through a list: home page, a category page, search, a login, a checkout, a contact form that actually sends, and the admin area. Look in the error log rather than only at the screen.

Freeze, sync, switch

1. Freeze changes. Put a hold on new orders, posts and uploads for the switching window. Anything written to the old server after your final copy is lost.
2. Re-sync the database and any uploads folder so the new server has the last few hours of data.
3. Change the nameservers at your registrar. With a 300-second TTL, visitors start arriving at the new server within minutes.
4. Leave the old account running for a week. It costs one more month at most and it is your undo button.

The first hour on the new server

Issue the SSL certificate for the domain and both the www and non-www forms. Confirm the redirect to HTTPS still works. Send a test email from the site and check where it lands - a new server means a new sending IP, so SPF and DKIM need to be right or your contact form starts going to spam. Then watch the error log for an hour.

We do this move for you at no charge when you come to us, including the mailboxes and the certificate. If you would rather do it yourself, the checklist above is the one we use.