This past weekend, I moved a blog from one site to another. While I did this internally to my current hosting company, the steps, process and lessons learned from the move would apply if you were changing hosting companies.
In this personal case study, I’ll provide you with the steps I went through to move my site along with some of the unintended consequences of the move.
Build a plan
What you are seeing here in the next few posts are the steps and explanations of the plan that I built to move the site — with additions for what I forgot, but found out during the process.
You must write down a plan — you will not remember all of the things that need to be done to move your site. You simply won’t. Not having a plan will mean missed steps and opportunities for you resulting in frustration with your move.
Backup your site
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Backup your blogging software (mine is WordPress) and database to your PC. The reason for doing so is because at some point you will point your domain from one host to another. During this time, you may lose access to your old site (or, it will at least be complicated to get there). Having all your stuff on your local PC simply gives you control.
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Here is what to download to your PC (using an FTP program, such as FileZilla):
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Current theme
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Current plugins
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Current database (usually done with a backup to your PC)
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Devote a Day to the Move
After you backup all your information, you are ready for the move. You really shouldn’t post anything to your former site at this point; it means more stuff to convert.
You should plan on taking an entire day to move your site — well into the evening. If things go really well, you won’t need the time. But, if you’re like me and this is the first time you are doing a move to a new site, you will take more time because of the unfamiliarity for what you are doing.
Don’t cause yourself frustration by not allocating a lot of time for this move. If things fall apart, it doesn’t help your cause if you need to be hosting a 10-person dinner party at your house in a half hour and your blog isn’t back up and working. Allocate the time.
Have a backout plan
If things go to hell and a hand basket, it’s important that you know there is a way to simply stop and go back to where you were so that you don’t blow away your old hosting company and don’t have your site up on the new hosting company. There are some things you can do to build some backout opportunities for your piece of mind:
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Don’t get rid of your original hosting company just yet. Plan on paying for hosting at least a month after you move to your new hosting company. Why? In case what you thought you were buying simply doesn’t cut it. If you move back, it’s easy if the account is still in place.
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Build your new site through temporary access. The way your blog moves from one hosting company to another is by pointing your domain to a set of servers. Your current hosting company has your domain pointed at their servers. Your new hosting company should provide you temporary access to your site (so you can move it) without changing where your domain (blog or web site) is currently pointing. Take advantage of this in that you can move all your stuff while all your readers are still looking at the old site.
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Be ready to point your domain back to the old servers. This is the key reason to keep your old hosting company for a while and the easiest backout plan to implement — shifting where you point your servers is a one-step change that can be implemented in 30-minutes by you. Once the domain changes where it is pointed, it takes about 24-48 hours for the change to propagate through the Internet. But if your new site is in shambles and your old site is still there, you don’t need to move to your new site at all; or, if you have moved, you can go back.
Moving a site is no small thing. I’m a geek in relation to most writers, but I don’t have the technical background like someone who works on servers every day to know how all things technical work. I compensate for that through having a good plan to implement the change, having a backout plan if things go too wrong, and allocating extra time to the job so I can learn (the hard way) as I go through the move.
Next up: What to do on the new site.
Scot
