It’s possible that you’ll want to change web hosts for a variety of reasons.

Poor customer service, a lack of uptime, or a desire for a different hosting service may make your current provider unable to meet your needs, and you may want to look elsewhere.

For a variety of reasons, moving a website to a new host can be difficult.

There will be downtime while you move your website, so that’s something to keep in mind.

Getting a new domain name server (DNS) registered on a new service provider can take a while.

The good news is that switching web hosts doesn’t require much downtime if you prepare in advance and follow the process step by step.

Guidelines for minimising downtime during a website migration

• Do not cancel your current plan

Notifying your current web host that you’ve made the decision to move on may seem natural at this point.

It’s imperative that this is not done.

Until your website is live on the servers of your new hosting provider, don’t tell anyone about your decision.

Notifying the web hosting company of your decision is usually enough to terminate your contract.

When your current plan expires, they’re going to start harassing you now rather than wait.

Resource management in relation to servers in a company’s data centre is extremely important.

To ensure that the resources are available to someone else, they will cancel your subscription as soon as you inform them that you will no longer be using the service.
Alternatively,

Almost all of your files will be moved and deleted from their servers as soon as you cancel your subscription.

After you’ve successfully completed the migration and have had a few days or weeks to familiarise yourself with the new environment, you should notify your old hosting provider.

In this time, make sure all of your files have been transferred to your new web host.

• Download all your backup files

A backup file’s importance necessitates its transfer.

With a common control panel, this is an easy task.

As cPanel and/or Plesk are offered by most hosting providers, this is the norm.

This becomes more difficult if the control panels are not compatible.

You can simply download and upload the backup files from your old server to the new one using cPanel’s control panel on the new server, for example.

This feature can be found by searching for it under cPanel’s main menu under “Backup“.

To get compressed backups of all your files, simply click on the button.

Decompression of these files is not permitted in any way.

As long as the backups are compressed, they can be automatically decompressed when they are transferred to the server.

Attempting to upload them without first decompressing them will take longer and require more effort.

• Getting your website started in a new environment

An email from your new web hosting provider will usually arrive as soon as a plan has been purchased and set up.

Your domain name and IP address should be included in this email.

Your new cPanel account login details will be included in the package you receive.

Your backup files should be transferred over to the new server as soon as you log in to your new cPanel account.

The process of downloading a backup is very similar.

Click on the “Backup Downloads” tab, and then “Backup Restore.”

You should have a full site backup in case something goes wrong.

Start by selecting the relevant files from your hard drive.

After the upload is complete, the backend database should be operational.

• Check if your database is working 

The database backup files contain no passwords or usernames.

Their knowledge of the various database permissions is completely nonexistent.

Consequently, you’ll have to keep track of each one separately.

In cPanel, there are numerous prefixes for databases that are not always correctly assigned by default.
In order to ensure that prefixes have been assigned correctly, check the database.”

You need to fix them if they aren’t.

Each application’s prefix is readily available on the internet.

Log in to the FTP account with your IP address.

Make sure you’ve completed this checklist before making the switch to new nameservers.

Make sure you’re up to date on everything you need to know.

In the absence of your action, you’ll be on your way to the finish line.

• Change the nameservers

You must notify your domain registrar once your website has been migrated to new servers.
Step one is the most fundamental.

Visitors to your site will see the information you’ve instructed the registrar to display.

For this, log into the domain registration control panel provided by the registrar.

There should be a “Domain Server Names” sidebar visible in this window.

There is a good chance that this tab will contain old data.

Enter the name server for your new web host here.

Most old websites go offline at this point.

Existing websites and new ones alike will continue to function normally while the name server propagation process is in progress.

Visitors to your websites will see the same look and feel no matter where they come from.

During the propagation period, don’t make any additions or changes to either of the websites.

Data may be lost as a result of this.

As a result, it takes only a few minutes for a new name server to be propagated.

A process is complete when it reaches that point.

For the time being, your website is hosted on a new server.

Your previous web hosting provider should now be notified that you’ve successfully completed the migration.

Conclusion

If a website migration goes smoothly, customers won’t have to deal with a website that works or doesn’t work at all.

We offer unmetered bandwidth, unlimited disc space, and a free SSL certificate in all of our Shared Hosting plans at Hostnats.

In addition, Hostnats will assist you in the migration of your website from any other hosting service provider.

Get in touch with us today to learn more!