How to move your website to GHost Cloud

Moving is included with Shared Hosting and WordPress Hosting, and we can do it for you. If you would rather do it yourself, this guide shows how, with as little downtime as possible.

Ask us to move it

Open a ticket from your account. Tell us your domain and how we can get to your site: a login for your old host's control panel, or a full backup file. We'll agree a time to switch over with you.

Before you start

• Make a full backup at your old host, and keep it until the move is finished.
• List your mailboxes, forwarders and cron jobs.
• A day ahead, lower the TTL of your DNS records to 300, so the switch takes effect quickly. See How to manage DNS records in cPanel.

Move your files

Download everything in your old public_html folder, as a zip if your old host allows it. Upload it to public_html in our cPanel and extract it. See How to manage files with cPanel File Manager.

Move your database

1. At your old host, export the database in phpMyAdmin.
2. In our cPanel, create a new database and user. See How to create and manage MySQL databases in cPanel.
3. Import the file in phpMyAdmin.
4. Update your site's settings with the new database name, user and password, for example in wp-config.php.

Move your email

Create the same mailboxes and forwarders in cPanel. To copy old mail, add both the old and the new account to an email app such as Thunderbird, using IMAP, and drag the folders across. Do this after you switch your domain, so no new mail is missed.

Switch your domain

Check your site on our server first. Then change your domain's nameservers to the ones in your welcome email. See How to point your domain to GHost Cloud. Keep your old hosting for a few days, until you're sure everything works.

WordPress sites

For WordPress, a migration plugin such as Duplicator or All-in-One WP Migration packs the files and database together. Install it on the old site, create the package, then restore it on your new hosting. Check the plugin's size limits first.

After the move

• Check every page, form and login on the new server.
• Check that SSL works. See How to install and manage SSL certificates.
• Send and receive a test email.
• Set up your cron jobs again.
• Raise your DNS TTL back to its usual value.

Related guides

• How to point your domain to GHost Cloud
• How to install WordPress on GHost Cloud
• How to create and manage email accounts in cPanel
• How to install and manage SSL certificates