{"id":5162,"date":"2026-08-18T11:21:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/blog\/?p=5162"},"modified":"2026-08-18T11:21:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T15:21:46","slug":"how-to-migrate-your-website-to-a-new-host-without-downtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/blog\/hosting-servers\/how-to-migrate-your-website-to-a-new-host-without-downtime\/","title":{"rendered":"How to avoid downtime when migrating to a new hosting provider"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most website migrations do not fail because the files could not be copied. They fail because the migration was done in the wrong sequence, or because DNS was misunderstood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those are the two problems behind a large share of migration disasters, and both are largely preventable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving the website files and database is usually the straightforward part. The real risk comes from what happens before and after the copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do not cancel your old hosting until the move is finished<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The safest migration process is simple: keep your existing hosting account active until the website is completely operational with the new provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People often do the opposite. They cancel early to avoid another invoice, or they notify their provider in advance because it seems courteous. That can create unnecessary risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Depending on the provider, giving notice may start the account-termination process. Backups may stop running, the account may be queued for deletion, and support may become less useful once the provider knows the service is leaving. In the worst case, the source data disappears before the migration is complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even if your existing host handles the cancellation perfectly, terminating the account early still removes your best safety net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the copy on the new server has a problem, you want the original website, database and email sitting exactly where they were so another copy can be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The correct order is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Move the account. Test it. Change DNS. Give DNS time to settle. Only then cancel the old service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">DNS is usually where downtime comes from<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving a website also means changing where the domain sends visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That change is not instantaneous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DNS information is cached by resolvers around the Internet, and the lifetime of those cached answers is determined by values that were already published before you started the migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two values are particularly important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nameserver delegation at the registry is commonly cached for 86,400 seconds, or 24 hours. With .ca domains, a one-day TTL is particularly common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Individual A records pointing a hostname to a server IP address are often cached for something closer to 14,400 seconds, or four hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until those cached records expire, some Internet users may continue reaching the old server even though you have already made the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neither your old host nor your new host can force every resolver on the Internet to discard those cached records immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is another reason the old hosting account must remain online during the transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For hours after a DNS change, and potentially for much of a day, some visitors can still be directed to the previous server. If you have already cancelled that account, those visitors will not see an older version of the website. They may see no website at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is another, less obvious timing problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Changing the nameservers through your domain registrar does not necessarily mean the registry has published the new delegation yet. Your registrar may accept the change immediately while the registry update happens later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During that window, the registry can still be instructing resolvers to use your old nameservers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you shut those nameservers down before the registry begins publishing the new ones, the domain may stop resolving entirely until the delegation catches up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is much worse than some visitors temporarily reaching the old website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before shutting down the old account, verify that the new delegation is actually visible publicly. Check it through multiple independent DNS resolvers rather than relying on a single lookup. Different resolvers refresh at different times, so one successful test does not mean the transition is complete everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A website migration does not necessarily move everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Files and databases are only part of what may be associated with a domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are several things worth identifying before the old hosting account disappears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Email history<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If both providers use cPanel, a full cPanel account migration can normally bring across the mailboxes together with their existing messages and passwords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving from another type of hosting platform is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new host can usually recreate the email addresses, but the historical messages may need to be transferred separately. One common method is to configure both the old and new mailboxes in an email client and copy the folders between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is relatively straightforward while both mail systems are still online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It becomes considerably more difficult after the source mailbox has been deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Proprietary website builders<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some websites simply cannot be migrated in the conventional sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy&#8217;s website builder are proprietary platforms. They do not provide a conventional website package that another hosting company can simply import and run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you leave the platform, the website generally has to be rebuilt elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Providing another hosting company with your login credentials does not change that limitation. If someone promises to migrate a Wix website exactly as it is onto ordinary web hosting, they probably have not examined what the site is actually built with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Email hosted separately from the website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another common situation is having the website hosted with one provider while email is handled somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GoDaddy customers, for example, frequently have their website in one environment while Microsoft 365 handles their mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That matters during a migration because the domain&#8217;s DNS records may contain carefully configured SPF, DKIM and DMARC settings governing who is permitted to send email for the domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Move the website without preserving or adapting those records and something such as a contact form may suddenly stop delivering messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The website still loads. The form may even display a successful submission message. But the email never arrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a business website, that is one of the more dangerous migration problems because it can remain unnoticed for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Test the migrated website before changing DNS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You should know whether the new copy works before you start sending real visitors to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A competent hosting provider should be able to give you a way to preview the website on the destination server while the public domain continues pointing to the original server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Use that opportunity to test more than the homepage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Try the parts of the website that actually perform actions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Contact forms<\/li>\n<li>Logins<\/li>\n<li>Shopping carts<\/li>\n<li>Checkout pages<\/li>\n<li>Booking systems<\/li>\n<li>Database-driven features<\/li>\n<li>Anything that sends email<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also compare the PHP environment between the two servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A website that worked perfectly on an older PHP release may produce warnings, errors or completely fail on a newer one. Discovering that during testing is inconvenient. Discovering it after DNS has already been changed is an outage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For websites that accept orders, reservations or customer submissions, schedule the final cutover during the site&#8217;s quietest period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is little benefit in performing a migration at the busiest point of the week if Tuesday morning gives you a much larger margin for troubleshooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What to check after the migration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once the new server is live, the migration still deserves some attention for the next several days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few problems tend to fail silently rather than producing an obvious broken page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Send email from the website itself. Test contact forms, order emails and other automated messages. Receiving normal mailbox email does not prove that your website can send successfully.<\/li>\n<li>Review your domain&#8217;s email authentication records. Make sure SPF is not still authorising only the old server and confirm that you have not accidentally created duplicate or conflicting DMARC records.<\/li>\n<li>Look for references to paths from the old hosting account. Caching plugins, page builders and some applications store absolute filesystem paths. When those paths change, the result may be a handful of broken pages rather than an obviously broken website.<\/li>\n<li>Leave the old hosting account online for another week or two. Once everything appears stable it can feel unnecessary, but for a short period it remains the easiest way to recover something that was overlooked.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The bottom line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The dangerous part of a website migration is rarely the actual file copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Problems happen around it: cancelling the original account too soon, assuming DNS changes are immediate, failing to test the destination server, or assuming that email and every other service attached to the domain will automatically follow the website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keep the old account running. Move the data. Test the new environment. Change DNS. Verify that the change has propagated. Give the transition some time. Then cancel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A successful hosting migration should be boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Full disclosure: this is the blog of a hosting provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are CanSpace, a Canadian web hosting company, and all of our servers are located in Canada. We handle hosting migrations regularly, which is why we put more emphasis on migration sequencing, DNS and testing than on recommending a particular migration plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We include the restoration of one complete cPanel account with each hosting plan at no charge, and we test the migrated account on our servers before you change your domain to point to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are considering moving your hosting, you can review our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/web-hosting.html\">web hosting plans<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/vps.html\">VPS plans<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If keeping your data in Canada is part of the reason for the move, our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/why-choose-a-canadian-web-hosting-provider.html\">guide to choosing a Canadian web hosting provider<\/a> explains the data-sovereignty considerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you are not sure whether your existing website, email or hosting setup can be migrated cleanly, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/contact.php\">send us the details<\/a>. We will tell you what can be moved, what requires special handling, and, where applicable, when the website cannot be migrated and needs to be rebuilt instead.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most website migrations do not fail because the files could not be copied. They fail because the migration was done in the wrong sequence, or because DNS was misunderstood. Those are the two problems behind a large share of migration disasters, and both are largely preventable. Moving the website files and database is usually the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"client_name":"","client_title":"","client_company_name":"","client_url":"","client_quote":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hosting-servers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to avoid downtime when migrating to a new hosting provider - CanSpace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How to move your website to a new hosting provider without downtime: the right order to do it in, why DNS matters, and what to check before you cancel.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.canspace.ca\/blog\/hosting-servers\/how-to-migrate-your-website-to-a-new-host-without-downtime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to avoid downtime when migrating to a new hosting provider - 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