How Do I Move My WordPress Site to a New Host?

The short version

Moving hosts — a "migration" — is really four steps: copy your site's files and database to the new host, set it up and test it there privately, point your domain name at the new location, then confirm everything works before switching off the old one. Done in the right order, visitors never notice a thing — the site stays up the whole way through.

Where migrations go wrong

The steps sound simple; the details bite. Miss part of the database and you lose settings or content. Switch the domain before the new site is tested and visitors hit a broken page. Forget your email or SSL and suddenly those stop working. And domain changes take time to spread across the internet, so timing matters. None of it is dangerous if you know the sequence — it's just unforgiving if you don't.

The safer way

The safe approach is to build and test the site fully on the new host first, keep the old one running until the new one is proven, then switch over with a fresh backup in hand. If you'd rather not gamble on downtime or a half-moved site, this is exactly the kind of move we do routinely — you keep running while we handle the handoff.