Knowing how to move website to new host is one of the most valuable skills any site owner can have. Whether your current host has become too slow, too expensive, or simply unreliable, migrating to a better provider can dramatically improve your site’s speed and uptime. The process sounds intimidating, but it’s entirely manageable when you break it into clear, ordered steps. This guide walks you through all 11 of them — no guesswork, no unnecessary downtime.
Table of Contents
1. Choose Your New Hosting Provider First
Before you think about how to move website to new host, pick the destination carefully. Don’t rush this decision. Compare plans based on server location, storage limits, PHP version support, and the quality of customer support — not just price. If you run WordPress, managed hosting from providers like SiteGround or Hostinger tends to offer one-click staging and migration tools that make the rest of this process far easier. Read independent comparison reviews before committing. Need help deciding? Our SiteGround vs Bluehost comparison breaks down two of the most popular options side by side.
2. Back Up Your Entire Website
This is non-negotiable. When you learn how to move website to new host, the backup step is your safety net — skip it and a single error can wipe months of work. Use your current host’s backup tool, a WordPress plugin like UpdraftPlus, or cPanel’s built-in backup wizard. Download a full backup to your local machine: files, database, emails, and any custom server configurations. Store it in at least two places — your hard drive and a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox. A backup that only lives on your server isn’t a real backup.
3. Set Up Your Account on the New Host
Sign up and provision your new hosting account before touching your old one. When figuring out how to move website to new host, keeping both accounts active simultaneously is the key to zero-downtime migration. Add your domain to the new host’s control panel — most panels (cPanel, Plesk, or a custom dashboard) have an “Addon Domain” or “Domains” section. Don’t update your DNS yet. At this stage, you’re just preparing the new environment so it’s ready to receive your files and database.
4. Transfer Your Website Files to the New Server
Now it’s time to move your actual files. How to move website to new host at the file level comes down to two main methods. The first is FTP/SFTP: connect to your old host using a client like FileZilla, download everything in your public_html folder, then upload it to the same folder on the new host. The second method is using SSH and command-line tools like rsync, which is faster for large sites. If your new host offers a migration plugin or cPanel-to-cPanel transfer, use it — it handles both files and databases in one go.
5. Export and Import Your Database
Most websites — especially WordPress sites — store all their content in a MySQL database. This step is where many people get nervous about how to move website to new host, but it’s straightforward with phpMyAdmin. On your old host, open phpMyAdmin, select your database, click “Export,” and save the .sql file. On your new host, create a new database and database user, then open phpMyAdmin and “Import” that .sql file. Write down the new database name, username, and password — you’ll need them in the next step.
6. Update Your Configuration Files
Once your database is on the new server, your site’s config file needs to point to it. For WordPress, that’s the wp-config.php file in your root directory. Open it in a text editor and update the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, and DB_HOST values to match your new database credentials. This is a critical part of how to move website to new host correctly — if these values are wrong, your site will show a “Error Establishing a Database Connection” message. Double-check every character before saving.
7. Preview the Site Before Changing DNS
Here’s a step that separates careful migrations from careless ones. Before you go live, preview how to move website to new host’s result by editing your local hosts file. This tricks your computer into loading the new server’s version of your site while the rest of the world still sees the old one. On Windows, the hosts file is at C:WindowsSystem32driversetchosts; on Mac and Linux, it’s at /etc/hosts. Add a line like NEW.SERVER.IP.ADDRESS yourdomain.com, save, flush your DNS cache, and browse your site. Check every page, form, and payment flow.
8. Test Everything Thoroughly
Testing is where you earn peace of mind when you think about how to move website to new host. Run through this checklist before flipping DNS: load the homepage and five internal pages, submit a contact form and confirm the email arrives, test any e-commerce checkout with a test order, check that SSL/HTTPS loads without certificate errors, and confirm that images, fonts, and scripts load correctly. For WordPress specifically, also check that plugins activate without errors and that your admin dashboard is accessible. If anything fails, troubleshoot on the new server now — not after you’ve already switched DNS.
| Test Area | What to Check | Tool or Method |
|---|---|---|
| Pages & Links | No 404s, correct content displays | Browser + Screaming Frog |
| Forms | Submissions arrive in your inbox | Manual test submission |
| SSL Certificate | HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings | WhyNoPadlock.com |
| Database Content | All posts, products, users present | WordPress admin dashboard |
| Site Speed | Page load time vs. old host | GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights |
9. Lower Your DNS TTL Before You Switch
TTL — Time to Live — controls how long DNS resolvers cache your domain’s records. When you’re planning how to move website to new host, reduce your TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) at least 24 hours before you switch. This means that once you update your DNS records, the change propagates globally in just a few minutes rather than up to 48 hours. Log into your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare — wherever your DNS is managed) and find the A record or nameserver settings. Lower the TTL, wait 24 hours, then proceed.
10. Update DNS Records and Go Live
This is the moment of truth. When you’re ready to complete how to move website to new host, update your domain’s DNS records to point to the new server’s IP address. If your new host uses its own nameservers, change the NS records at your registrar instead. Because you already lowered the TTL in Step 9, most visitors will hit the new server within minutes. Keep both hosting accounts active for at least 48–72 hours after the switch. Some older DNS resolvers ignore low TTLs, so your old host needs to stay live as a fallback for those users.
11. Cancel the Old Host and Tidy Up
Once traffic has fully shifted — your analytics confirm it, your logs show it — the final step of how to move website to new host is decommissioning the old account. Before cancelling, download one last backup from the old server just in case. Remove any sensitive data like payment credentials or API keys stored there. Cancel before your next billing cycle to avoid an unnecessary charge. Raise your DNS TTL back to a sensible value (3,600 to 86,400 seconds), and you’re done. Your site is fully migrated.
Final Thoughts
Understanding how to move website to new host feels complex at first, but it’s really just a sequence of careful, logical steps. Back up first. Prepare the new environment. Move files and database. Test before switching DNS. Keep both hosts alive until traffic confirms the cutover. Following these 11 steps in order protects your data, your rankings, and your visitors’ experience. If you’re weighing which host to migrate to, check our Hostinger vs Bluehost comparison for a detailed look at two strong budget-friendly options. For deeper reading on DNS propagation and migration best practices, Google’s guide on site moves and the Cloudflare DNS explainer are both excellent starting points. Good luck with your migration — when you do it right, your visitors won’t notice a thing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to move a website to a new host?
For a small to medium site, the actual file and database transfer typically takes between 30 minutes and a few hours. DNS propagation after you switch can take anywhere from a few minutes (if you lowered your TTL in advance) to 48 hours in rare cases. Plan for a full day to be safe.
Will moving to a new host affect my Google rankings?
A properly executed migration has minimal impact on SEO. The key is to keep the same URLs, maintain your existing redirects, and avoid any extended downtime. Google treats a host change as a technical move, not a content change — so as long as your content and structure stay the same, rankings should remain stable.
Do I need to know how to move website to new host manually, or can a plugin do it?
If you run WordPress, plugins like Duplicator, All-in-One WP Migration, or Migrate Guru can handle most of the heavy lifting. That said, understanding the manual process means you can fix problems when automated tools hit snags — and they sometimes do, especially on large or complex sites. It’s worth knowing both approaches.
Can I move my website to a new host without any downtime?
Yes — that’s exactly what this guide is designed to achieve. By keeping your old host active, previewing the new site via your hosts file, lowering your TTL, and only switching DNS once everything is confirmed working, most visitors experience zero disruption. The window of risk is very small when you follow the steps in order.
