How To Efficiently Migrate Any Website In 6 Steps

There are a number of reasons why you might want to migrate your website from one server to another.

One of the most common problems that people experience is lackluster performance from hosting providers such as GoDaddy, HostGator, and other corporate providers who tend to aggregate a lot of websites onto single machines.

Another reason why you might want to migrate your website is to receive an upgrade, like getting a dedicated server rather than using a VPS, or jumping directly from shared to dedicated or cloud servers. All of these require different architectures to work appropriately, and simply “copy-and-pasting” your WordPress files from one server to the other won’t do the trick.

In this article, you’ll get to see how simple migrating a website can be when done appropriately. First, we’re going to show you the easiest but most costly way. Then, due to its popularity, we’re going to show how this can be done on WordPress. And lastly, we’re going to show you exactly what lies behind migrating any website with a step-by-step guide.

Asking Somebody to Migrate the Website for You

This is the easy way out. It’s also the one that will cost you the most, depending on how big your website is, and the technologies used. Let’s face it — most marketers won’t want to take the time to understand the process, even if they have some knowledge about how websites work in the backend. Most people will ask hosting providers to migrate the website.

And that’s totally fine! But only as long as the hosting provider is renowned and trusted for delivering the appropriate migration methodology. There are many providers that do not provide migration services, and you should stray away from them. There are also other providers who will charge you extremely high fees for migrating just one site.

Then you have service providers that actually know what’s going on in the backend, and which have dedicated teams solely responsible for migrating websites. This is the case of providers such as Liquid Web, which is one of the few providers that guarantee 100% free migration services when you switch to one of their servers. And they’re great performers too!

Surely, the idea of migrating a website is annoying. It takes time, it’s technical, and it’s downright frustrating at times. If you want an easy way out, you need to find either a hosting provider who’s willing to migrate the website for you or a system administrator who can do that on demand. Beware of the second option as it will cost you quite a bit of money.

Effectively Migrating Your WordPress Website

In theory, migrating a WordPress website is easier than migrating any website. That’s because WordPress employs a specific tech stack that makes it “easy” to transfer the implementation as is. However, the setup on the new server needs to be exactly the same if you wish for things to work correctly. Same version of PHP, same database, same control panel, etc. Specifically, there are three ways you can go about it:

1. Using premium tools or plugins to migrate your website. These are less expensive than asking a system administrator to do the work for you, and they’re usually more efficient too. Tools like VaultPress (developed by the same people who made WordPress) are extremely easy to use and valuable for website owners who run content-heavy solutions. Conversely, using third-party tools can be hit or miss.
2. Migrating files and databases manually. This is a risky move for people who aren’t all that experienced with WordPress or system administration in general. However, it is worth a try if your website isn’t all that trafficked yet. You can get this done by using backup plugins such as UpdraftPlus to download all relevant files and databases, reinstalling WordPress on the new machine (with the same configuration), and reuploading all the files in their correct locations. Again, this isn’t something that’s ideal for beginners, so we don’t recommend doing it unless you’re confident about your skills with control panels, FTP, etc. There are many great tutorials out there that can help you with this, and we especially love the one written by WPBeginner.
3. Asking a WordPress developer to do the manual work for you. This is the same thing as asking a system administrator to migrate a website, except that it’ll cost you much, much less. That’s because WordPress developers don’t have to fiddle with the command line; they simply transfer things manually on your behalf if you’re not confident enough using control panels and following the process outlined above.

WordPress is well-known for its ease of use, and migrating a WP implementation is a streamlined process that is fairly well-documented. But we don’t want to limit ourselves to the most popular CMS because — to be honest — many people do not want to use WordPress, which is perfectly fine. Let’s jump into how to migrate any website.

Migrating Any Custom Website in 6 “Simple” Steps

There are six steps to go through before you can declare success on your website transfer. All of these are fundamental aspects of website migration, and they have to be followed exactly in this order, otherwise you risk losing data, breaking the site, or having issues related to misconfiguration. Ready? Here is how to migrate any website in six steps:

1. Back up your current implementation! We can’t stress this enough. Backups are your best friend. If you’re not sure you’ve backed things up correctly, do not proceed with any other step. If you feel like there might be something missing, do not try to migrate the website. You’ll be surprised by how quickly websites break when you start removing the smallest of things. Most people fall into the trap of thinking that you can just copy and paste, and that’s it. But that’s not the case. You have to backup your implementation, and keep the original one on the original server. If you use cPanel, the backup feature is valuable and worth looking at before migrating.
2. Prepare the current server for the upcoming migration. After backing up all the data that you have on the original server, you want to prepare the source server for migration. This means deleting any excess data that you don’t need anymore, clearing the cache, getting rid of bloatware, and keeping things fairly lean. After all, a migration process usually requires transferring large amounts of data (depending on how big your website is), and if you lighten up the load before the migration, you’ll be much happier seeing that files were transferred faster, and more securely.
3. Create a one-to-one copy of the source configuration. If you use WHM, this means making sure that the technologies installed on the new server account are exactly the same on that interface, and that all the configurations are mirrored. This is where things get tricky because, if you’ve had the chance to work with the control panel, you know that there are a billion configurations lurking around, ready to break your website as soon as you transfer it onto the new server. Keeping track of a server configuration is serious work that requires in-depth documentation. If you don’t have this documentation, please consider talking to an expert on the matter.
4. Set up and configure the target server account to copy the files. Again, you want to make sure that all configurations are exactly the same as the other server. Virtual servers are usually better suited to emulating any kind of implementation, so pay close attention if you’re switching to a dedicated server: it might employ a different architecture from the one you were using. Always ask for help when unsure. This step requires going through the same configuration installed on the source control panel, and carefully copying the files that were duplicated in the previous step.
5. Modify your DNS hosts file to test the new implementation. At this point, your original website should still be untouched on the old server, and it should still load when you type your domain name in the browser. Before you proceed with anything else, you want to make sure that your new implementation is working correctly, and you can do that by modifying the DNS hosts file on your computer. This file exists on all platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux) and, with just a few operations, you’re able to check whether or not your website is correctly loading from the new server without updating the official DNS records. You can follow Liquid Web’s tutorial for this step.
6. Point your domain’s A records to the new server. Is the website working after modifying the hosts file and clearing the browser cache? Are all the elements there and working correctly? Is the SSL certificate installed? Take your time to check everything; don’t rush this step. It might feel like the website is perfect on the surface, but you don’t want to go through with the migration if there are things that are broken on the backend. Take a few days to check all aspects of the site. Once you’re 100% sure that everything is working, you can finally point your A records to the new server and call it a day. Congrats! You just migrated your website in six steps.

Ok, maybe it’s not as simple as counting up to three, but it doesn’t need to be a complicated process either. The most important thing is patience. Working with servers is an involved process, but, if done correctly, it’s only a matter of time before you can start playing around with your website on your new server. Rushing the process will only make matters worse.

Intrigued about the process but overwhelmed at the same time? We’re more than happy to help. At DarwinApps, we conceptualize, design, create, and deploy websites for the modern marketer (and we’re pretty good at migrating them too!). If you need to migrate a custom site that needs to stay up at all costs, give us a hint. We’d love to talk about your project!