SUPPORT
Moving a website is mostly about what you don't lose.
Files and databases are the easy part. The work is email, DNS, certificates, cron jobs, redirects, and the integration nobody remembered until it stopped working.
Getting files off an uncooperative host is a familiar problem, not a dead end.
What a migration has to cover.
Files and database
The obvious part, and the part that goes wrong quietly when uploads, large tables or file permissions get missed.
DNS and the cutover
TTLs lowered in advance, records mapped, and the switch made once both copies are working.
SSL certificates
Issued and valid on the new server before anything moves, so nobody sees a security warning.
The most commonly broken thing in a migration.
Redirects
Especially when the platform changes and URLs change with it.
Everything attached to the old server
Cron jobs, API allowlists tied to an IP address, mail aliases, subdomains pointing at services nobody remembers buying.
What goes wrong, and how we avoid it.
It's almost never the files
Copying a site is straightforward. What causes the bad weeks is everything attached to the old environment that nobody wrote down: a nightly product import, an API allowlist tied to the server's IP address, a mail alias set up in 2019, a subdomain pointing at a service nobody remembers buying.
Changing platforms is a content job
Moving between hosts is mechanical. Moving between platforms means working out what maps to what, what has no equivalent, what needs restructuring, and what URLs the new system will produce.
What to expect
- We inventory what exists first
- We build and test on the new host
- We treat email as its own project
A small site between two standard hosts is a known quantity. A platform change or an uncooperative outgoing host isn't, and we'll say so.
Migration questions.
Will the site go down?
It shouldn't. The site runs and is tested on the new server before DNS changes, and TTLs are lowered in advance so the switch is quick.
What about our email?
Handled separately. Email often lives somewhere different from the website even on the same domain, and moving the site without checking is the most common way a migration takes email down.
Will we lose our Google rankings?
Not if the redirects are done properly. If URLs change, every old URL gets pointed at its new equivalent. We plan that before launch rather than after.
Moving a site is scoped and quoted: how much there is, where it is going and what has to keep working.
Not what you need? See all three ways we work
Need to move a website?
Tell us where it is now, where it's going, and whether email is on the same domain. That's the start of the list.
Rather talk it through? Call 833-336-6453.