Many people are put off by the idea of switching hosting providers because they fear their website will be unavailable for days or that their emails will be lost. With proper preparation, however, the migration takes just a few hours, and visitors won’t even notice a thing. The problem usually lies not with the migration itself, but with a few overlooked details: a DNS record, an email account, or a contract terminated at the wrong time.

In this article, we’ll summarise when it’s worth switching and when it isn’t, how to plan your migration, and what the most common pitfalls are.

When is it worth switching?

• Your site is slow, and although you’ve already optimised it (images, caching, plugins), it remains slow or regularly reaches the resource limits of your plan.
• Downtime is frequent, and the provider either does not guarantee availability in its SLA or fails to meet it.
• Support is poor: they don’t reply for days, or their replies aren’t helpful.
• Missing features: no daily backups, outdated PHP version, no free SSL, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC cannot be configured.
• You’ve outgrown your plan, and there’s nowhere else to go with your provider (such as upgrading to a VPS plan).
• The price: the introductory offer has expired, and renewal is considerably more expensive than elsewhere for the same service.

When is it unnecessary?

If the slowness is caused by the website itself (large, unoptimised images, too many or poorly written plugins, lack of caching, outdated PHP), it will remain slow even with a new provider. First, measure the site’s performance (for example, using PageSpeed Insights) and check whether it is the server response time (TTFB) or the content downloaded by the browser that is causing the slowness. Our guide on server response time will help with this. If you simply need more resources, upgrading to a larger plan with your current provider will often solve the problem.

Planning your move

1. Inventory

Make a list of everything that’s on your old hosting account:

• websites, subdomains and their associated databases,
• email accounts, aliases, forwarding, automatic replies,
• DNS records (A, CNAME, MX, TXT, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, validation records),
• cron jobs, custom PHP settings, .htaccess rules,
• SSL certificates (expiry dates for paid certificates),
• external services that refer to the old server’s IP address (for example, a payment provider or an API that authorises requests based on IP).

2. Choosing your new hosting plan

Choose a package that has enough capacity for everything (storage, databases, email accounts, domains) and supports the PHP version used by your website. Our pre-purchase checklist summarises these considerations. Ask whether the provider offers assistance with the migration: aWh includes a free migration service with every hosting plan.

3. Timing

• Choose a time when traffic is low (at the weekend or at night), and don’t schedule it in the middle of a campaign or peak season.
• Don’t cancel your old service too early: allow for at least a 1–2 week overlap to ensure everything runs smoothly before it is discontinued.
• Don’t wait too long to cancel either: check your old contract for the notice period and the automatic renewal date so you don’t end up paying for another year unnecessarily. Our article on cancelling a hosting contract covers this.
• Reduce the TTL: a day or two beforehand, set the TTL of your domain records to 300 seconds so that the change propagates quickly.

Steps for migration

1. Full backup from the old hosting account: files, databases, emails. The full account backup from a cPanel hosting account contains all of this in a single file and can be restored to another cPanel hosting account virtually unchanged.
2. Migrating to the new hosting: uploading files, importing databases, creating email accounts and copying emails (using IMAP synchronisation). If the provider is carrying out the migration, they will take care of this.
3. Settings: the database connection in the configuration file (for example, in WordPress’s wp-config.php file), the PHP version and limits, cron jobs, and SSL.
4. Testing before changing the DNS settings: in the hosts file on your own computer, redirect the domain to the new server’s IP address; this way, you’ll see the site on the new hosting, whilst visitors will still see it on the old one. Check the pages, the login, the forms, the payment system and the search function.
5. DNS migration: set the domain’s A record (or name servers) to point to the new server. If you are changing the name servers, all records must be present in the new zone, not just those for the website.
6. Follow-up: carry out another synchronisation to transfer the emails and any changes made to the database since then (orders in the case of an online shop), check the SSL, and monitor the error log for a few days.

Our WordPress migration guide covers the migration of WordPress sites, whilst our email migration guide covers the transfer of emails.

The most common pitfalls

Forgotten DNS records

Most post-migration errors stem from this: the new zone is missing an MX record (emails aren’t coming through), SPF or DKIM (outgoing emails end up in spam), a CNAME (a subdomain or external service isn’t working), or a verification TXT record (Google Search Console or Microsoft 365 loses domain verification). Take a backup of the old zone before making any changes. For more information on DNS, see the guide on managing DNS records.

Online shop: lost orders

If the online shop is running on both the old and new servers during the migration, some orders will be placed in the old database. Put the old shop into maintenance mode immediately before the final database copy, or transfer any orders placed in the meantime afterwards.

SSL

The new hosting service can only issue the free Let’s Encrypt certificate once the domain is pointing to the new server; therefore, a warning may appear for a few minutes or hours after the switchover. If this is a problem, the certificate can be issued in advance using DNS-based validation, or, in the case of a paid certificate, it can be installed in advance.

SEO

If the URLs remain unchanged, the migration will not affect your search engine rankings. If URLs or domains change as part of the migration, set up a 301 redirect from each old address to the new one, and notify Google Search Console of the change.

Transfer a domain

It is not compulsory to transfer the domain to the new provider: it is sufficient for the DNS to point to the new hosting provider. If you do transfer it, you will need to request an authorisation code (auth code) from the old registrar; for .hu domains, this is issued by the registry once you have verified your identity using the email address and telephone number associated with the domain. You can find the details on our .hu domain page and in our domain transfer guide. Do not schedule the domain transfer for the same day as the hosting migration: if you move the hosting first and then the domain, only one thing will change at a time.

Access to your previous provider

If you’re on bad terms with your old provider, or if your service has been suspended, it can be difficult to back up your data and retrieve your domain code. That’s why you should sort out the backup and check your domain details right at the start of the migration, rather than leaving it until the last few days.

Summary

A hosting migration is successful if you carry out an inventory beforehand, terminate the old contract with an overlap period, test the new hosting using the hosts file before changing the DNS settings, transfer all records to the new zone, and resynchronise emails and changes once more after the migration. If the slowness is caused by the website itself, optimise it first, as the migration alone will not speed things up.

aWh’s hosting plans come with a free migration service: order your new hosting plan, open a ticket with the details of your old hosting account, and we’ll migrate your website, database and emails. Take a look at our hosting plans

Frequently Asked Questions

How long will the website be down during the switch?

With good preparation, practically nothing: the old hosting will continue to operate until the switchover, and after the DNS changes have been made, visitors will gradually be redirected to the new server. For online shops, it is advisable to switch to maintenance mode for the duration of the final database copy (a few minutes).

Can emails get lost?

No, if you create the mailboxes on the new server in advance, synchronise the emails, set the MX record to point to the new server, and synchronise again after the switchover. Do not cancel your old service until all emails are arriving at the new server.

Do I need to transfer the domain as well?

It’s not compulsory. It’s sufficient for the domain’s DNS to point to the new hosting service. Whilst it’s more convenient to manage everything in one place, it’s worth arranging the domain transfer separately after the hosting migration.

What should you do if WordPress isn’t working after the migration?

Check the database name, username, password, server, PHP version and file permissions in the wp-config.php file, and clear the cache. If the domain has also changed, you’ll need to update the WordPress address in the database.

How can I test my new hosting before changing the DNS settings?

On your own computer, add the new server’s IP address to the domain in the hosts file. That way, only you will see the new hosting, whilst visitors will continue to see the old one.

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