Website Migration: How to Move to a New CMS, Hosting or Domain

Sooner or later many businesses move their website: to a CMS that does more, to a faster hosting provider or to a new domain after a rebrand. Every website migration carries the same risks: lost pages, broken links and a drop in Google traffic and enquiries. This guide explains how to plan each type of move, which checks to make and how 301 redirects keep the visitors and rankings you already have.

A content management system (CMS) is the software you use to run your website: it stores the pages, products and images, and gives you an admin panel to edit them without writing code. Themes control how the site looks, and plugins or apps add features such as forms, bookings or payments.

Popular platforms for UK business websites include:

• WordPress, for business websites and blogs, with WooCommerce for online shops;
• Shopify, a hosted platform for online shops;
• Magento (Adobe Commerce), for larger online shops;
• PrestaShop and OpenCart;
• Drupal and Joomla;
• custom systems built on frameworks such as Laravel.

How to Plan a CMS Migration

A CMS migration has two goals: move all the content and keep the traffic. Start with an audit of the current site. The Performance report in Google Search Console and your Google Analytics 4 data show which pages bring visitors and enquiries, and an SEO tool shows which pages other websites link to. These pages need the most care.

The safest migration keeps the same URLs. Move every page with its text, page titles, meta descriptions, images and their alt text, and check that forms, tracking codes and structured data still work on the new platform.

Often the new CMS uses a different URL structure, and some addresses have to change. Each changed URL then needs a permanent 301 redirect to its new address, or you lose the visitors and links it had. A simple website migration checklist for URLs:

• list every current URL, using your XML sitemap, a crawler such as Screaming Frog and your CMS export;
• mark the URLs that will stay the same;
• map each URL that changes to the closest matching new page, one to one, and avoid sending many old pages to the home page;
• set up 301 redirects from each old URL straight to its final new address, without chains of redirects, and test them before launch. Google describes the full process in its guide to site moves with URL changes.

Choose the new platform by what your business needs. WordPress suits most company websites and blogs and is free open-source software, so you pay for hosting, themes and development; see our WordPress website development service. For online shops, Shopify is a paid hosted platform that looks after hosting and security for you, and we cover it on our Shopify development page. Popular platforms share several advantages:

• A wide choice of themes for different industries and styles;
• Plugins and apps that add features such as bookings, payments or product filters;
• Control over SEO settings such as URLs, page titles and descriptions;
• Regular security and feature updates;
• A large community and plenty of developers who know the platform.

Before you decide, check that the CMS lets you set readable URLs and write a unique title and meta description for every page. In WordPress, SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO add these settings. Most modern platforms also connect easily to Google Analytics, social networks and CRM systems. Expect some movement in rankings after any migration: Google says rankings can fluctuate during a move and that most pages of a small or medium-sized site can take a few weeks to move in its index.

What does a new CMS give you? Usually features the old platform could not offer, faster pages and easier day-to-day editing. A careful migration keeps the search visibility the old site has built up.

Businesses change hosting provider for many reasons: slow server response, frequent downtime, weak security, poor support, or a site that has outgrown its hosting plan. Moving to a new host is also a good moment to update the PHP version and set up proper backups.

What Is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the service that keeps your website online. The hosting provider stores your site’s files, code, images and databases on its servers and delivers them to visitors’ browsers. You pay for a hosting plan, monthly or yearly, and the plan sets how much storage, memory and traffic your site can use.

How to Move a Website to a New Host

Moving to another host without changing the domain or URLs is the simplest type of migration, but it still needs care. The main steps:

• Open an account with the new provider and copy the site’s files and database to the new server;
• Test the site on a temporary address that is closed to search engines, and check that your firewall does not block Googlebot;
• Lower the DNS TTL of your domain about a week before the move, then point the domain’s DNS records to the new server, as Google recommends for moves without URL changes.

Keep the old hosting running until no more traffic reaches it, then close the account.

What do you need for the move? A full website backup: an export of the database, usually as an SQL file, and an archive of all site files. You can transfer them through the hosting control panel or an SFTP client, which is safer than plain FTP. For WordPress, migration plugins can package the whole site for you.

Common Problems When Changing Hosting

The new plan may not match the old server: less storage, a different PHP version or lower memory limits can break the site or parts of it. Compare the technical requirements of your site with the new plan before you pay, and leave room for growth.

If the database or files are copied incompletely, pages may not load or may show errors. Another common mistake is forgetting the email records (MX records) when you change DNS, which stops your business email. Check the site and email carefully straight after the switch.

How to Choose a Good Hosting Provider

Whatever CMS your site runs on, the host affects its speed and security. Free hosting is rarely suitable for a business website. Look for a paid plan with automatic daily backups, malware scanning, protection against DDoS attacks, free SSL certificates, current PHP versions and support that answers quickly. If your site stores customer data, ask where the servers are located.

Businesses usually change domain after a rebrand or a merger, to move from .com to .co.uk or the other way round, or to switch to a shorter, more memorable name. A new domain is not a fix for falling rankings: if your traffic has dropped, find and fix the cause first, as we explain in our guide to Google filters and penalties.

A domain name combines the name you choose with a domain extension, such as .co.uk, .uk, .com or .org.

How to Choose a New Domain

The new name should be easy to remember and spell, and it usually matches your company or brand name. If most of your customers are in the UK, .co.uk or .uk shows that at once; for an international, multilingual site, .com is the usual choice. Our article on how to choose a domain name covers this in more detail.

How to Move a Website to Another Domain

First, register the new domain and connect it to your hosting. Copy the site to the new domain, whether it runs on WordPress or another CMS, then update internal links, the XML sitemap and the canonical tags so they all use the new addresses.

Next, set up a 301 redirect from every old URL to the same page on the new domain, so visitors who use an old link land in the right place. Verify both domains in Google Search Console, submit the new sitemap and use the Change of Address tool to tell Google about the move. Google recommends keeping the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year, so keep the old domain registered and renewed.

A domain migration involves many small steps, and a missed redirect can cost traffic. If you would like the site checked before and after the move, see our website SEO audit, or tell us about your project on our website development page.