06 / Service
Hosting migration
The hosting is in somebody else's account. The invoice comes from a company you have never spoken to. Nobody knows where the domain is actually registered, and the only person who did has stopped answering.
Definition
Ownership of your own site, domain and email, in accounts with your name and your card on them. The switch is planned so nothing goes dark. This is the least glamorous work here and the one that most often needs doing first.
Fit
You are probably in the right place if:
- Anyone whose hosting sits in a former developer's account.
- Sites on hosting that is slow or quietly out of support.
- A business that cannot get a straight answer about where its domain is.
- Anyone whose domain, site and email live in three different places.
Scope
- Finding where the domain, the site and the email actually live
- New hosting set up in your name, with your billing
- A full copy stood up and checked before anything is pointed anywhere
- The switch timed so it takes minutes rather than being a gamble
- Security certificate issued and enforced, one address for the site
- Email moved, with the three records that keep your mail out of spam checked afterwards rather than assumed
Sequence
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01
Find everything
Who the domain is registered with, who runs the site, who runs the mail. These are frequently three or four different companies and nobody has the full list.
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02
Copy and check
The site is stood up on the new hosting and compared with the live one page by page before anything is switched.
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03
Switch
Prepared in advance so the change spreads in minutes instead of days. Mailboxes move with their contents intact.
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04
Check again afterwards
Every page, every form, and a real message sent and received. Mail is verified from outside, because a broken mail record fails silently for weeks.
Effort
What actually moves the number.
The honest answer to what it costs is that it depends on these. Read them and you will know roughly where your job sits before anyone quotes you anything.
- Whether you have access
- Recovering a domain from an unresponsive third party is the single longest step, and it is a paperwork problem rather than a technical one.
- Whether email moves too
- Moving mailboxes is more delicate than moving a site. Lost mail is not recoverable the way a page is.
- Site size
- A simple site copies in minutes. A large store taking live orders needs a planned window.
- What else depends on the domain
- Every service that verifies itself through your domain has to be verified again after the move.
FAQ
Will the site go down?
Not if it is prepared in advance and both hosts serve the site during the switch. Visitors reach one or the other and both work. The switch is the boring part when it is planned and the exciting part when it is not.
What if I cannot reach my old developer?
There is a documented recovery process through the company the domain is registered with, and it works. It takes days rather than hours, which is why it starts before anything else.
Can you move my email as well?
Yes, and it should move at the same time. Splitting the website and the email across a switch is where lost mail comes from.
Which host do you recommend?
Whatever fits the site. Most small business sites are well served by good shared hosting, and money saved on an oversized plan is better spent making the site smaller.
Next
Tell us what is wrong with it.
The quote form arrives with hosting migration already selected. It starts with the site rather than with you, so the first step costs you nothing.