Hosting portability guide
A hosting migration is an operational change, not a copy-and-paste exercise.
Preserve ownership, revenue, email, search visibility and a credible route back if the change fails.
Use the migration planBuild recovery firstDo not cut over until domain ownership, DNS, email dependencies, independent backups and rollback authority are known.
The six-part migration plan
| Stage | Required outcome |
|---|---|
| Ownership | Confirm registrant, administrators, recovery email, MFA and billing owner. |
| Independent backup | Export site files, database, media and configuration outside both providers. |
| Dependency map | Record DNS, email, forms, analytics, payments, CDN and certificates. |
| Destination test | Test forms, redirects, login, checkout, performance and restore before cutover. |
| Cutover and rollback | Freeze changes, assign authority and define reversal criteria. |
| Verification | Check DNS, HTTPS, canonicals, robots, sitemap, analytics, email and logs. |
Risk by site type
Low
Static brochure site, independent domain control and clean export.
Medium
Managed WordPress with plugins, transactional email and provider tooling.
High
E-commerce, membership, proprietary builder or tightly bundled domain, DNS and email.
Rollback triggers
- Checkout, login or forms fail.
- Email flow breaks.
- HTTPS, redirects or canonical URLs are materially wrong.
- Data written after cutover cannot be reconciled.
- No accountable person can confirm the source of truth.
Continue the decision
Last reviewed 17 July 2026.