How To Move A Website? A Checklist For Beginners
It's essential to have a plan in place before starting moving your site. Therefore, a checklist can be used to make sure you don't forget anything while doing so. If you need the help of an efficient and reliable web design agency, you can click here so you can get started.
But before we go into the details, what could be the possible reasons you would want to move your website? The following are the most common reasons for doing so, but there could be others:
- You want to change hosting providers.
- Your web host has shut down their business, so you need a new one
- The design of your site is outdated, and it's time to update it.
- And others!
What To Include In Your Checklist
If you’ve decided to move your site, here are some that you shouldn't miss.
Getting A New Domain Name
A new domain name is crucial when transferring your website, representing your business when you launch it. Therefore, it is essential to do this before the process gets completed. This step would also prevent the old domain name from showing up and confuse visitors coming to your site.
If you're curious about the new domain’s cost, some domains can be registered for less than $100 per year or higher, depending on their features. Setting one up will only take about 15 minutes of your time on any given day (depending on how long it takes to set up each subdomain).
Let Your Current Host Know When You'll Move The Site
If you're planning to transfer your site, it's essential to let your current host know about this. This tip is crucial because you might not want the site and its content to be “shut off” in the middle of the process. This result may cost you valuable time and money. Also, this process often takes an entire day or two depending on the services being used. Thus, it's essential to give your hosting provider notice as much time as possible.
You'll also want to think about how this can be done. As a general rule, you can do so by simply leaving them a message. However, this may be interpreted differently if not given enough context or direction.
For example, if your site’s content was stored in one spot on their server, one message might work. But if kept in multiple places across their server, you'll want to specify that the content is “spread out” and will need more than one event or process to move your files altogether.
Creating An Up And Running Duplicate Of Your Old Website
‘Why is it necessary to back up my website content?’, you may ask.
The truth is moving your website can be difficult and time-consuming, especially if the new platform has different specifications than the old one. This concept applies when you move from a hosted service to another domain name or server.
Though this may be daunting, this process is not wasted time – it's a necessary step in moving your sites as it saves you time and effort in creating new content and getting back your rank in SERPs. Therefore, creating an up and running duplicate of your old one to serve as a backup might be helpful in your case.
To do this, you will need to create a copy of your current website. This step can be done using specific features of your platform or manually downloading all files from your server. You may then put them on another server, do the steps required and change your URL.
Some also suggest practicing this even if you are moving between two similar servers (e.g., both hosted by the same company). It may also probably best to make a backup of your website unless there is an “incident.” This incident may refer to a technical issue, security breach, or other unforeseen events.
Check If All Links Are Working, Content Is Still Relevant; Images Are There
It's also important to check if all connections are working, content is still relevant, images, etc., before moving your website. This step can sometimes be tricky, especially with the site not being available for a while.
You might also want to make sure any plugins you are using work with the new hosting provider. It's also good to test your website before launching it to make sure it doesn't have any errors or other problems.
