How To Transfer Hosting From One Registrar To Another
Hosting transfer is the process of migrating your web hosting from one host to another for various reasons. One should be careful when doing this because if the transfer procedure is not followed to the letter, an organization may lose their customers’ contacts, emails, and important data.
Hosting transfer consists of the following
- Website files transfer.
- Database transfer.
- Emails transfer.
In order to reduce website and email downtime, the following steps must be followed.
1. Choose your hosting plan
2. Request for cPanel credentials from your hosting company.
3. Download your website files using FTP client (File Transfer Protocol) or your cPanel. Read more on cPanel Backup.
4. Use your cPanel credentials to connect FileZilla with the server in order to download website files to your local computer. The backup files will be uploaded to the new hosting account subsequently.
5. Export website database SQL files to your computer.
6. Create a hosting account with your new host.
7. Use FileZilla to upload website files to your new account.
8. Create a new database and import SQL file.
9. Change the nameservers of your domain name to point to the new registrar. The nameservers usually take 48 hours to propagate. After the propagation, your website visitors will be directed to your new hosting account. Nameservers are changed after successful migration.
10. If your email accounts are hosted by a third party such as Google, ensure that you have changed the MX records.
11. Test whether the website is functioning as it should be.
12. Test whether you are able to send and receive emails.
Note: Do not make any changes to the website until the migration is over. This is because none of the updates (such as posts, comments, purchases) that take place after the backup of your website/account has been created will be carried over to the new server.
Non-cPanel hosting account (e.g Webmin hosting, 1&1 hosting) transfer process is long and complicated. It is not a 100% guarantee that your emails will be transferred successfully. In this case, you may lose important emails and that is why we recommend you to transfer cPanel to cPanel accounts. By transferring your account from cPanel to cPanel fast and no emails will be lost.
Still having trouble transferring your hosting from one registrar to another host? Contact us for a free consultation.