Originally published at https://monstermegs.com/blog/migrating-to-new-hosting/
The biggest fear when migrating to new hosting is arriving at your destination to find something broken – files missing, the database refusing to connect, or your domain pointing at a blank screen while customers wait. It is a fear that stops a lot of website owners from making a move they should have made months earlier. But migrating to new hosting is genuinely manageable when you treat it as a planned process rather than a rushed escape. Follow the right sequence and you can switch providers without your visitors ever knowing it happened.
When migrating to new hosting, the fundamentals stay the same whether you are leaving a slow shared server, outgrowing a budget plan, or chasing the performance gains that come from LiteSpeed-powered infrastructure on NVMe storage. This guide covers every stage: what to prepare before you touch a single file, how to transfer databases and email accounts, when to flip DNS, and how to verify everything worked correctly on the other side.
Why Migrating to New Hosting Is Worth the Effort
Slow page loads, repeated downtime, and support that goes quiet when you need it most are the obvious triggers. But the benefits of migrating to new hosting go well beyond fixing existing problems. Moving to better infrastructure – particularly servers running LiteSpeed on NVMe drives – can cut page load times dramatically and improve your Core Web Vitals scores in the process. According to W3Techs, LiteSpeed now powers over 14% of all websites it surveys worldwide, a share that has grown steadily as performance demands have increased.
If page speed and reliability are what pushed you toward a move, that is a sound business decision. Speed affects bounce rates, conversion rates, and organic search rankings all at once. If you want to understand the infrastructure difference when migrating to new hosting, our look at NVMe hosting performance breaks down how faster storage holds up under real-world load.
What to Do Before Migrating to New Hosting
Preparation is what separates a smooth migration from a chaotic one. Before you move anything, document what your site actually uses. Note your PHP version, any custom directives in your .htaccess file, installed cron jobs, database names and users, addon domains, and any server-level features your site relies on. This inventory becomes your checklist when you rebuild the environment on the new server.
Check what your current host offers to help. Many providers include a cPanel backup wizard or even a complimentary migration service. If you are migrating to new hosting on your own, a full cPanel backup export gives you a compressed archive of every file and database on your account. For WordPress sites, plugins like Duplicator and All-in-One WP Migration bundle files and the database together into a portable package you can deploy in a few clicks at the new host.
Audit Your Current Setup First
Look carefully for anything non-standard – custom PHP.ini overrides, PECL extensions, Node.js processes running alongside your PHP app, or manually configured SSL certificates. If you are migrating to new hosting from a managed account, ask your current provider what server-level configuration is applied to your account that might not be visible from cPanel alone. Anything you do not document now is something you will scramble to recreate later.
Choose the Right Migration Window
Traffic analytics tell you exactly when your site sees the fewest visitors – usually in the early hours in your primary audience's time zone. Schedule migration work for that window. Migrating to new hosting during a quiet period keeps disruption to a minimum if any visitors land mid-transfer during DNS propagation. A brief maintenance page on the old host is a clean way to manage the gap.
Back Up Everything Before You Move
There is no such thing as too many backups before a migration. Before migrating to new hosting, take a fresh manual backup – even if your host already runs automated daily snapshots. Automated backups are for routine recovery; a manual backup made right before you begin captures the exact current state of your site. Store it in at least two locations: your local machine and a cloud storage service like Google Drive or Dropbox.
For database-heavy sites, export the database separately as a standalone .sql file via phpMyAdmin or the mysqldump command. A separate database export makes rollback straightforward if the import at the new host hits a problem. For a complete framework on protecting your data before and during moves, our guide to website backup best practices covers the full process in detail.
Transferring Files, Databases, and Email Accounts
File transfer is the most time-consuming stage of migrating to new hosting, especially for sites with years of uploaded images and documents. The fastest method for most users is to download a full cPanel backup from the old host and restore it via the Backup Restore tool at the new one. For very large sites, ask your new host about server-to-server transfer options – many offer this for free as part of an onboarding migration service.
Database migration follows a clear export-and-import workflow: export the database from phpMyAdmin at the old host, create a matching database and user at the new one, then import the .sql file. The step most people miss is updating the site configuration file with the new database credentials. For WordPress that is wp-config.php, for Laravel it is the .env file, for Drupal it is settings.php. An incorrect credential causes a connection error that looks alarming but takes thirty seconds to fix once you know where to look.
Email accounts need separate attention. When migrating to new hosting, treat email as its own workstream. Recreate all mailboxes at the new host before you touch DNS. If you are moving mail data itself, IMAP-to-IMAP migration tools in your mail client can transfer messages folder by folder. Forwarders, autoresponders, and catch-all addresses all need to be manually recreated – unless you use an external provider like Google Workspace, in which case a DNS record update is all that is required.
Updating DNS Settings for Your Domain
DNS propagation is the part of migrating to new hosting that confuses most people. When you update your domain's nameservers or A record to point at the new server, the change rolls out gradually across the global DNS network. Propagation can take a few minutes or up to 48 hours, depending on the TTL value that was previously in place on your old records.
To compress that window, lower your DNS TTL to 300 seconds (five minutes) at least 24 hours before you plan to cut over. This instructs DNS resolvers worldwide to check for updates far more frequently, dramatically narrowing the propagation window when you make the switch. Once the new site passes testing, update the nameservers or A record and leave it alone. Avoid making additional DNS changes mid-propagation – each change resets the clock.
If your URL structure is changing during the move, setting up proper 301 redirects is critical for preserving your search rankings. Google Search Central's documentation on site moves with URL changes is the authoritative guide for making sure search engines follow you to the new location without losing ranking signals.
Testing Your Site Before the DNS Switch
Before you change a single DNS record, test the site thoroughly at the new host. Most providers let you preview via a temporary staging URL, or by editing your local hosts file to point the domain at the new server's IP address. This gives you a real-browser view of the new environment before migrating to new hosting from a DNS perspective – so any issues are caught before visitors are affected.
Work through a structured checklist: key pages load correctly, images and fonts render as expected, contact forms submit and send, checkout flows complete end-to-end, the admin panel is accessible, SSL is active and the site loads over HTTPS with no mixed-content warnings, and redirects fire as intended. If you have moved to a LiteSpeed-powered server, configure LiteSpeed Cache before launch to take full advantage of server-level page caching from day one.
Common Mistakes When Migrating to New Hosting
The most frequent problem when migrating to new hosting is forgetting to update hardcoded URLs in the database. WordPress stores the site URL in dozens of places – post content, option values, serialised metadata. If you have changed any part of the domain or moved from HTTP to HTTPS, run a search-replace operation using WP-CLI or the Better Search Replace plugin to update every instance in a single pass.
Cancelling the old account too early is another mistake common when migrating to new hosting. Keep the old plan active for at least two to four weeks after DNS cutover. If a problem surfaces – a file that did not transfer correctly, a configuration detail that was missed – the old server is your safety net and point of comparison. Cancelling it before the migration is fully stable removes that option entirely.
Overlooking SSL is a third frequent slip. Your new host needs to issue a fresh certificate for your domain after the move. Most modern providers, including those running LiteSpeed with cPanel, include free Let's Encrypt certificates that provision automatically. But automatic does not always mean instant. Confirm SSL is active and your site loads cleanly over HTTPS before migrating to new hosting at the DNS level – so no visitor ever lands on an insecure page mid-switch.
Finally, do not skip the post-migration speed check. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix once you are live on the new host. If you have genuinely moved to faster infrastructure, the scores should reflect that. If they do not improve as expected, the issue is usually a caching misconfiguration rather than a server problem – something a cache plugin or CDN adjustment can resolve quickly.
The Takeaway
Migrating to new hosting is one of the highest-leverage changes you can make for a slow or underperforming website. The process is methodical, not mysterious: back up thoroughly before you begin, transfer files and databases carefully, test everything on the new host before you touch DNS, and keep the old account live during the transition period as a fallback.
The websites that run fastest are usually the ones that chose their hosting environment deliberately. If you want a foundation built for speed – LiteSpeed servers, NVMe storage, and hosting designed to perform under pressure – take a look at MonsterMegs' web hosting plans. Whether you are migrating to new hosting for the first time or moving an established site to better infrastructure, starting on the right platform makes the difference from day one.
