Quawkle

Here are some thought regarding a recent hosting migration from ASO to Host Gator:

Hosting Service:

• look for special deals
• sign up for multi-year deals if they are a lower price
• look for hosting that includes SSL at least for your main domain and good prices if you add Multi domain SSL
• look for good reputation for support service
• my recommendation and the hosting service I choose was HostGator (full disclosure, the link is a referral link for me). I found them via a PC Mag article that reviewed hosting services. I was able to sign up for a subscription that was 1/3 of the normal price and far better than the $160/year metered service + $100/year SSL certificate that I was currently paying. I also tried out the support service via chat which I found to be very prompt and efficient.
• track all your info for CPanel (you will spend a great deal of time here)
  • user name and password
  • hosting ip address
  • name servers
  • ftp login information
• under public_html, create subfolders for each of your domains you are migrating (e.g. heartofpapa, quawkle, etc.)
• use the Domains or Addon Domains to create new entries for your additional domains

• for the sub-domain listing, be sure to remove the .com, etc.

Zone Records on New Hosting Service:

• If you are using your main domain for email, make sure you set up Zone records prior to changing your nameservers at your domain registrar (also learned this the hard way when my email and my wife’s email starting bouncing back to the senders)
• in CPanel, click on Zone Editor

• Look at the same settings on you old hosting service and copy those settings to the new service – particularly all of the MX records and any custom CNAME records you created – for us, we like to access our email which is hosted with a google workspace account via the url mail.my.domain.com so I created a special CNAME record for that
• In the Zone Editor, find the domain you want to add MX or CNAME records and click on the appropriate button to the right of the domain name
• You can filter existing records by type (MX, CNAME, etc.) to create a new record, click on the Add Record and create a new record. Be sure to click on the Save button to save your changes
• also remember the name of the domain must be followed with a period (e.g. mydomain.com.)
• Now you can point your nameservers on your domain registrar’s configuration to your new hosting services nameservers shown on CPanel

Pre-Migration Steps:

• Backup all your files from your current hosting service to an external hard drive
• For WordPress sites, install a migration plug in
  • I chose Duplicator (free version) to start with but had to pay for Pro version to handle one WP site because of size (500 MB limit)
• update all plugins and themes
• take a screen shot of all active plugins
• deactivate all plugins except for Duplicator

Migration Steps:

• Create a new build and look for errors if present and correct them and then rebuild
• Make sure you have both an installer file and an archive (either a zip or da extension file with site name)
• download the above files to your computer
• using ftp client or the CPanel file manager, upload these two files to the domain subfolder you created under public_html
• using CPanel in your new hosting plan, use the wizard to create a new SQL database and db username/password
• give your new db user full access rights
• I used the naming convention below:
  • db name – CPanel login name + underscore + wp + sitename (e.g. mycpanelusername_wpmydomain)
  • db user – CPanel login name + underscore + sitename (e.g. mycpanelusername_mydomain)
• at this point, you need to be able to connect to the domain name or sub-domain (for multiple sites)
  • you may change the nameservers at your domain register to your new hosting service’s nameservers – however this will take time to propagate
  • you can add an entry to your host file for the domain and point it to your new hosting ip address (be sure to reboot computer for it to take effect)
  • once you are done migrating wp site, be sure to remove these entries from host file and reboot again – they can mess up your testing
• from a browser, type in the domain name + / + installer.php
  • for example either
    • my2nddomain.com/installer.php or
    • my2nddomain.mymaindomain.com/installer.php
• follow the instructions and be sure to use the full db name and full db user that you created above
• click on Test – if you get all green indicators, then click on next otherwise resolve the issues and then repeat the process
• you will have to click Next a couple of times as the database is created and configured
• when the upgrade is done, click on the option that will open the wp admin and auto delete the installation files
• review the wp migration and then using the screen shot you captured earlier, re-activate your plugins and deactivate the Duplicator plugin
• for more information, check out this link https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-move-wordpress-to-a-new-host-or-server-with-no-downtime/
• here are some tips I had to learn the hard way:
  • if you cannot connect to the installer.php file:
    • verify that you are connecting to the correct domain on your new host by adding a simple html file to the domain subfolder and trying to connect to it (e.g. my2nddomain.com/test.html)
    • rename the installer file to newname.php and try connecting to it (e.g. my2nddomain.com/newname.php)
    • try rebooting your computer to see if the host file is cached
    • wait awhile for your nameserver changes to take effect
  • most of the time, these problems are overcome by persistence and trying different ideas – backup files before changing filenames, etc. – take a lot of screen shots of any configurations before changing them (I learned this the hard way 🙂 )
  • don’t trash your setup and files on your old hosting site until you have confirmed everything is working on your new site – this is why it is good to make this migration at least a week before your subscription to the old hosting site expires or renews or you decide to cancel

Post-Migration Steps:

• Confirm that you have a local hard drive backup of your old hosting service’s files
• Confirm that you have screen shots of any configurations that you created on your old hosting service
  • Zone records
  • Domains, Subdomains
  • CPanel settings
    • username
    • nameservers
    • ip address of your hosting site(s)
    • other important info
• Remove your files from the old hosting service using CPanel file manager
• Either turn off auto renewal on your billing page of the old hosting service or contact them and let them know you wish to cancel your subscription
• use a site like MX Toolbox to check your domain/domains and verify they are resolving to your new ip address with your new hosting service

I hope these instructions and tips will help to make your migration to a new hosting service easier than I experienced. I know I will reference this the next time I make a transition!