Move your website in, without going offline.
A move is a copy, a check and a switch, in that order. Your current site keeps serving visitors while the copy is built here, you look at the copy before anyone else can, and nothing changes for the public until you change one DNS record. This page is the whole sequence, what moves by itself and what does not, and where we step in when you ask.
No downtime
The switch comes last
Files, data, mail
Each crosses its own way
Preview first
You see it before the public
Help when asked
Once the hosting is set up
How a move works
Two copies of the site, and one switch between them.
Downtime during a migration is never caused by the copying. It is caused by switching before the copy was checked, or by forgetting the parts of a site that are not files.
The old site keeps serving
Ordering hosting here changes nothing for visitors. The new package answers on its own address, your domain still points at the old host, and both stay live for as long as you need them to.
What moves
Files, the database, and the mailboxes if mail lives with the site. Each has its own way across: FTP or the file manager, a database export and import, and mailboxes recreated here with their messages copied over.
What does not move by itself
DNS records at the old host — mail, verification and third-party records — have to be recreated in the new zone before the switch. A certificate does not move either: a fresh one is issued on the new platform for the domain, at no charge.
Who does what
Everything on this page can be done from the control panel and the guides. Or get in touch once the hosting is set up: we help move the files, the database and the mail across, and tell you when to change the domain records.
The sequence
Six steps, and the switch is the last one.
Do them in this order. Every migration that went wrong did the last step first.
- 01 Order the hosting on the same domain At the naming step choose "Use a domain I hold elsewhere" or one already on your account. The package is created under your domain name, but the domain itself still points wherever it did — nothing is switched by ordering. Find the nameservers and records to use
- 02 Take a full backup where the site is Files and database, downloaded to your own machine, before anything is touched. A move that starts from a backup can be repeated; one that starts from a live site cannot. Back up and restore a site in cPanel
- 03 Bring the files and the database in Upload the files with FTP or the file manager into the folder the guide names, create a database in the panel, import the export, and update the application's configuration file to the new database name, user and password. Upload your website with FTP
- 04 Recreate the records you rely on Mail (MX), sender records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and any TXT records a third party asked you to add. Copy them from the old zone into the new one now, so that the switch moves the site and the mail together rather than the site alone. Manage your DNS records
- 05 Preview before anyone else can Point your own computer at the new host with its hosts file — the guide shows how — and click through the copy: forms, logins, images, HTTPS redirect. Fix what is broken while the public is still on the old site. Preview a site with your hosts file
- 06 Switch, then wait before you cancel Change the nameservers or the A record at the domain's DNS. Visitors arrive here as caches expire — usually within hours, sometimes a day. Keep the old host running until they all have, and keep the backup after that. Change your domain's nameservers
Piece by piece
Everything a website is made of, and how each part crosses.
A website is at least five separate things that happen to share a domain name. Each one moves differently.
- Files How it crosses FTP or the panel's file manager, into the folder the guide names for your domain. Worth knowing Check file paths and permissions in the preview; both differ between hosts.
- Database How it crosses Export at the old host, create a database and user in the panel here, import, update the configuration file. Worth knowing For WordPress, the site URL and paths inside the database may need a search-and-replace.
- Mail How it crosses Mailboxes are created here under the domain; existing messages are copied across by the mail client or by us on request. Worth knowing Or move mail to a dedicated platform at the same time and keep it out of the hosting altogether.
- DNS records How it crosses Recreated in the new zone before the switch, from a copy of the old one. Worth knowing MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and verification TXT records are the ones people forget.
- Certificate How it crosses Not moved. A free certificate is issued for the domain on the new platform once it points here. Worth knowing Turn on the HTTPS redirect after the switch, not before.
- The domain How it crosses Stays where it is registered. Only its nameservers or its A record change. Worth knowing Transferring the registration is a separate, optional step, and it can wait.
Mail records are the piece most often left behind. The deliverability page shows what each one is, and the domain transfer page covers the optional last step.
The four ways it goes wrong
None of them is technical. All of them are order.
Migrations do not fail on copying. They fail on the switch, and each failure below is the same mistake: changing what the public sees before the copy was complete.
Switching before checking
The hosts-file preview exists so that the first person to see the new site is you. A switch made before that step turns every missing image into a public one.
Moving the site and losing the mail
If mail lived with the old hosting, the switch moves the MX record with it. Recreate the mailboxes and the records here first, or the day the site arrives is the day the mail stops.
Cancelling the old host too soon
Caches around the world keep the old address for as long as the record's time-to-live said they could. Cancel a week after the switch, when nobody has reached the old site for days.
Trusting somebody else's backup
The platform here takes its own copy on a five-day cycle and can restore it if you ask. That is a safety net. The backup you moved from, and the ones you take from cPanel afterwards, are yours.
Questions
Before you decide.
Not if the switch comes last. Ordering hosting here changes nothing for visitors; the copy is built and checked while the old site keeps serving; and the moment you change DNS, visitors start arriving at a copy you have already looked at. The only downtime a migration produces is the kind caused by switching first and checking afterwards.
Get in touch once the hosting is set up and we will help move the files, the database and the mail across, and tell you when to change the domain records. Every step on this page can also be done from the control panel with the guides linked beside it, and you may do part and hand over the rest.
It depends on where it lives. If your mailboxes are at the old host, recreate them here under the domain before the switch and copy the messages across, or the switch will move the mail record along with the site. If mail is already on a separate platform, its records simply need recreating in the new DNS zone, and nothing about the mailboxes changes.
No. The hosting works with a domain registered anywhere; only its nameservers or its A record need to point here. Transferring the registration is a separate, optional step with its own page, and it is usually easier to do after the site has moved and settled.
Visitors arrive at the new site as caches expire, which is governed by the old record's time-to-live. Most see the change within hours; some resolvers hold on for up to a day. The propagation guide shows how to lower the time-to-live in advance and how to check what a given place currently sees.
The pieces are the same — files, uploads, database — with two extras: the site address stored inside the database usually needs a search-and-replace to the new URL, and WordPress Hosting here has no cPanel, so files and database are handled from its own dashboard rather than from cPanel tools. The Linux hosting plans have cPanel and take a WordPress site like any other PHP application.
Pick the hosting. The move follows.
Six platforms on one account, each with the guides above beside it. Order on the domain you already have, build the copy, and switch when you have seen it.