How to migrate your website to Web Hosting Centre

Switching web hosts is one of the more stressful technical tasks for a business owner. The good news: it’s usually less painful than people fear, and we can do most of the work for you when the conditions are right. This guide walks through what to expect.

Coming from a specific host? We’ve written honest, side-by-side comparisons for the ones people switch from most: Web Hosting Centre vs GoDaddy, vs SiteGround, and vs Crazy Domains.

Two paths: guided or hands-on

How much we can do for you depends on what’s consolidated with us:

Hands-on migration (we do it): If you’re bringing your domain, DNS, hosting, and email to us in one move, we can handle the entire migration end-to-end. Send us your current host’s login (or a backup file), and we’ll move files, databases, mailboxes, and switch DNS at the right moment.

Guided migration (we help, you act): If your domain stays at another registrar, or your DNS is managed elsewhere (Cloudflare, AWS Route53, etc.), we can’t push the final DNS changes for you. We’ll do the hosting move and walk you through the DNS update on your end.

In both cases, the hosting work itself — moving files and databases — is included. No “premium migration” upsells.

Before you start

1. Make a backup. Use UpdraftPlus (WordPress), cPanel’s backup wizard, or whatever your host provides. Keep a local copy. We’ll also keep a copy, but redundancy is your friend.
2. Document anything custom. Custom mail filters, .htaccess rewrites, cron jobs — anything your sysadmin built that isn’t in the default install. Write it down before you forget.
3. Lower your DNS TTL. A few days before migration, set your A/CNAME record TTLs to 300 seconds. This means the eventual DNS switch propagates in minutes rather than hours.
4. Tell us your deadline. If you have a “must be live by Monday” event, tell us at the start of the ticket, not the night before.

The migration itself

Most WordPress migrations follow this pattern:

1. Provisioning. We set up your hosting account and email mailboxes on our infrastructure. Your site is accessible via a temporary URL we provide.
2. File transfer. We pull your site files (themes, plugins, uploads) from your existing host.
3. Database transfer. We export your database from the old host and import it to ours, updating any hardcoded URLs as needed.
4. Testing. You test the site at the temporary URL and confirm everything looks right.
5. DNS switch. When you’re happy, we (or you) update DNS to point at our servers. Because TTL is low, this propagates in minutes.
6. Email cutover. New mail starts arriving at our mailboxes. We pull historical messages from your old mailboxes via IMAP if needed.

Typical timeline

Most migrations finish in 2 hours to 1 day. Yes, really. Here’s a realistic breakdown for a standard WordPress site under 10 GB with a few mailboxes:

1. Provision your account — within minutes of opening the ticket
2. File + database transfer — typically 30 to 90 minutes for sites under 10 GB; longer for larger sites
3. Testing on the temporary URL — as fast as you can check it (usually 15-30 minutes)
4. DNS switch + email cutover — minutes on our end; live within 5 minutes for most networks after the change
5. Old host can be cancelled — once you’re confident, typically same day or next

Total active work on our side: usually 1–2 hours. What stretches the wall-clock time is whatever’s outside our control: how quickly you can test and approve, how long your previous registrar’s TTL takes to expire on the wider internet, and whether the migration involves unusual amounts of data.

When migrations take longer:

• Large sites (50+ GB, or 100k+ files) — file transfer time scales with size
• High-traffic stores that need a careful low-traffic-window cutover to avoid losing orders mid-checkout
• Complex mail histories that need IMAP-to-IMAP migration of years of archives
• DNS propagation delays when you didn’t lower TTL ahead of time, or your previous registrar is slow to push the change globally
• Custom configurations that need re-implementing (cron jobs, custom .htaccess, mail filters)

In every case, we’ll tell you upfront what the realistic timeframe looks like before we start.

What can go wrong

• DNS propagation taking longer than expected. Usually fine if you lowered TTL ahead of time. Without TTL prep, expect 4-24 hours.
• Hardcoded URLs in the database. Themes that hardcode https://oldsite.com everywhere need search-and-replace. We handle this, but warn us if you know your theme does it.
• Email-in-flight. Mail that arrives during the DNS switch may go to either old or new mailbox. We minimise this with a careful order of operations.
• Plugin licences tied to domain. Some premium plugins have domain-based licensing. Reactivate after migration if needed.

After migration

Once you’re confident the new setup is working:

1. Cancel your old hosting (don’t forget — auto-renewals are sneaky)
2. Update any external services pointing at your old IP (CDNs, monitoring tools, third-party integrations)
3. Test email send + receive from a few different addresses
4. Take a celebratory coffee

Ready to start