Move WordPress to a new host without your site going down

Last updated 29 August 2026 · How we test

The principle

Downtime during a migration is almost always self-inflicted. It happens because people delete the old site before the new one is serving traffic. If you build the new site first, test it privately, and only then move DNS, both hosts serve your visitors during the changeover and nobody sees anything.

Set aside three hours. Most of it is waiting.

Four days before: lower your TTL

TTL is how long the world is allowed to cache your DNS record. The default is often 14400 seconds — four hours. Change it to 300 and the eventual switch propagates in about five minutes instead.

Do this in whichever control panel manages your DNS. It has to happen at least one old-TTL period before the move, which is why it's the first thing on the list and not the last.

This single step is the difference between a five-minute changeover and a day of split traffic where some visitors see the old site and some see the new one.

Step 1 — Copy everything to the new host

Many hosts will do this for you free. Ask before you pay anyone: "Do you migrate my WordPress site free, how many sites, and how long does it take?" If they do it, let them, then skip to the testing step and verify their work.

Doing it yourself, the reliable route is a migration plugin — Duplicator, All-in-One WP Migration or similar. It packages files and database together, which avoids the classic mistake of moving files and forgetting the database.

Manually, it's four things: the wp-content folder, wp-config.php, a database export, and a database import on the new host with the credentials updated in wp-config.php.

Step 2 — Test the new site before touching DNS

This is the step people skip, and it's the one that prevents disasters. You want to view the new server using your real domain name, but only from your own computer.

Edit your computer's hosts file and add a line mapping your domain to the new server's IP address:

203.0.113.45    bestwebhostinghub.com www.bestwebhostinghub.com

On Windows that file is at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts and needs Notepad opened as administrator. On Mac and Linux it's /etc/hosts.

Now your browser sees the new server while the rest of the world still sees the old one. Click through the whole site. Log in to the admin. Submit a contact form. Load a product page. Check images. If something is broken, you have found it with zero consequences, and you can fix it or abandon the move entirely.

Remove the hosts line when you're done testing.

Step 3 — Freeze, then re-sync the database

Between your copy and your switch, someone might publish a post or a customer might place an order. Those writes land on the old database and would be lost.

So: stop publishing, tell anyone else with access to stop, and for a shop, pick a genuinely quiet hour. Then export the database from the old host one final time and import it over the new one. Files rarely change; the database always does.

Step 4 — Switch DNS

Change the A record to the new server's IP. With a 300-second TTL, most visitors move across within minutes.

Do not cancel the old hosting. Both servers are now serving identical sites, which is exactly what you want — anyone still holding the old DNS answer gets a working site rather than an error.

Step 5 — SSL, then verify properly

Your certificate does not travel with the site. Once DNS points at the new host, issue a fresh certificate there, usually a one-click Let's Encrypt option. Until that's done, visitors get a security warning, which looks far worse than being offline.

Then check, in this order: the site loads over https, the padlock is clean, admin login works, a contact form actually delivers, and email still arrives. That last one catches people out — if your email was on the old host, moving hosting can break it. If you use a separate mail service, leave the MX records alone entirely.

Step 6 — Wait two weeks before cancelling

Keep the old account alive for a fortnight. It costs a few hundred rupees and it's your undo button. Also download a full backup of the old site before you cancel, because once that account closes the files are gone.

While you're waiting, check Search Console for a crawl error spike, and confirm your pages still load fast from where your customers are.

What tends to go wrong

CommonMixed content warnings. Old URLs hardcoded as http, or pointing at the old domain. A search-and-replace across the database fixes it — the migration plugins offer this.

CommonEmail stops working. Hosting and email are separate services that often live on the same account. Know which one holds your mail before you move anything.

WatchThe domain is locked. Only relevant if you're also transferring the domain, not just the hosting. Unlock it and get the auth code from the current registrar first; some make this deliberately hard.

WatchPHP version mismatch. A newer PHP on the new host can break an old plugin. Check the version on both and match it initially, then upgrade later as a separate job.

Before you move at all

Two things worth checking about the host you're moving to, because they're the ones that bite Indian businesses later: whether the invoice will carry your GSTIN so you can claim the tax back, and whether their renewal charges will actually clear on an Indian card. That second one takes sites offline every year.

And run the numbers on the full term, not the first year — the calculator does renewal, GST and forex together. Migrating to save money and landing on a bigger renewal price is a common and avoidable mistake.