WordPress migration, i.e. moving a site, sounds bigger than it is, mostly because people have been burned by a switch that took the site down, broke email, or lost a page nobody had copied. A proper move should not feel like that. The live site stays where it is until a copy has been checked and you are happy to switch.
Copy, then staging, then check, then DNS
We do not point your domain at a new server and hope. The order matters more than the software.
Copy, while the public site stays put
We take a copy of the files and the database. Customers keep using the current address the whole time. Starting the job does not change what they see.
A normal WordPress install on cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin or most standard hosts is straightforward. We need a hosting login, or SFTP plus the database, and a WordPress admin user. If you do not have those, we will tell you what to ask the current host for. We will not guess our way in, and you do not need to become a technician. Someone does need to approve access.
Staging, so you see it before anyone else does
The copy sits on a staging address on our hosting, not on your public domain. You can click through it. So can we. Customers do not see a half-moved site.
This is where the dull faults show up. A plugin that wanted a different PHP version. A form still posting to an old URL. An image path aimed at the previous host. Better on a private URL than on the homepage at 9am.
Check the paths that matter
We do not stop at the homepage. Forms, bookings, logins, checkout if you sell online, and anything you say must not break. SSL is on our side before we ask you to look.
Then you look. If something is off, we fix the copy, not the live site. You are not asked to approve a move you have not seen. Most WordPress sites are copied, tested and ready inside a week. A busier site, a catalogue, a membership area or a shop with live orders, gets a planned window so nothing is rushed.
DNS is the switch, not the whole job
The switch is a DNS change. A few minutes of work, then a stretch where some visitors still hit the old server and some hit the new one, depending on caches. That is normal. It is not an outage we have parked in the middle of the day without telling you.
Until DNS moves, the old site stays up. After it, we watch the new one. If you send email from the same domain, we check those records first, so a website move does not quietly break mail. Mail is not done just because the site moved. If it needs its own piece of work, you hear that before we touch it.
Who the move is free for
On ‘Host Care’ at £109 a month ex VAT, and on ‘Host Business’ at £179, a standard WordPress migration is included. ‘Host Care’ is where we point most businesses that are moving, because the move is the easy part. Afterwards someone has to keep up with updates, read the alerts, and do the small jobs. ‘Host Care’ covers that: alerts we act on, a monthly report, and up to 30 minutes of tweaks. A phone number, an image, a form field. Not a redesign, and the minutes do not carry into next month.
‘Host Business’ is the better fit when the site takes money and there is usually something waiting. Priority response, a retained hour that can roll to a maximum of two, and a quarterly look at performance. The move is included in the same way.
On ‘Host’ at £39 a month ex VAT, and on ‘Host Secure’ at £69, migration is not included. The normal fee is £249. If it is not a standard WordPress install, we quote before we start. You can also step up to ‘Host Care’ and have a standard move covered. We will say which costs less for what you actually need. We will not push ‘Host Care’ if ‘Host Secure’ plus a one-off move is the honest fit.
‘Host Secure’ is still a fair landing place if your team will keep editing pages and you want the updates, the malware scan and a monthly health email done for you. No staging site, and no included change time. ‘Host’ is the floor only: SSL, daily backups, monitoring and a restore path, on the basis that someone with you will run the updates.
Locked builders are not a migration
Wix, Squarespace and similar locked builders do not hand over a WordPress site. There is no clean lift-and-shift. Copying the words into a document and calling it a move leaves you with something that looks familiar and behaves worse.
Two honest options. We rebuild it on WordPress, priced before we start. Or, where the platform allows it, we look after it where it already lives and say clearly what we can and cannot do. Sometimes leaving it alone is the better value. We will say so.
A messy WordPress site is different. We can move it. We look first, and we will tell you if it needs cleaning up before we take it on. Most sites we look after came from somewhere else. A pile of abandoned plugins is common. Name it before you pay for care on a stack that should have been tidied. See live work if you want a sense of what a rebuilt or moved site can look like.
What the move does not include
A migration copies the site you have. It does not redesign it, rewrite it, or promise a better place in search. If old addresses need to keep working, we map redirects as part of the switch. That is housekeeping, not a ranking claim. Search work is a separate job after the site is stable.
The standard job is the copy, the staging check and the DNS change. Years of shop orders, a membership site, or several domains may take longer. You hear that before anyone is committed.
Care after the move is a different decision from the move itself, even when the fee is bundled. ‘Host Care’ means we keep watching. It is not priority response, and a malware cleanup is not absorbed into the monthly price. A bad update gets rolled back where we can. A job that will not fit in 30 minutes gets flagged before we do it.
What to send us
The website address, where it is hosted, and what it is built on. The panel name helps. If you do not know it, say so. Tell us what must not break: the form, the booking link, the shop, the staff login.
We will tell you if it is a standard WordPress move, a quoted job, or a rebuild. The live site stays up until you have seen the copy.
Ask us where the site lives now
Send the current host and the platform via contact, or book a free call. If you want the plan detail first, it is on ‘Host Care’.