How to Migrate a Website with Minimal Downtime?
Reading Time: 5 minutes For online-based business, the essence or importance of having a perfect website cannot be undermined. Business owners more or less understand this, and thus they spend money generously for developing the business website. However, they often tend to ignore one aspect. That is nothing but the performance of the website. The website will perform as per expectation, when it is uploaded on the secured and cutting edge hosting server. If existing hosting service is not satisfactory, you have the choice to migrate anytime. Migrating to a better website hosting platform would be an excellent option for the small-scale businesses, which are not doing well enough due to website hosting service issues.
The process of migrating from one website hosting server to another is not complicated, though it should be done accurately. Mistakes may cause loss of data, loss of confidentiality of your data and many other glitches. To avoid such hassles, you need to focus on the process of migrating from one hosting server to another. For that reason, the following tips could be observed. In the following section, we shall discuss the tips that will ensure minimal downtime during the process of migrating a website from one hosting server to another server.
Table of Contents
#1. Move and Then Cancel
Though it a common thing, people make some mistakes right at the beginning stage when it comes to canceling the existing hosting plan. You should not cancel the hosting plan until you have moved the website completely to a new server. You need to be enduring, especially when your business website data is quite heavy in terms of size. Moving the files and reviewing them after moving to the new server will take time. It is a process which should be done with perfection and patience. Losing patience can lead to mistakes and mistakes could be costly. If important data is lost or damaged, you will not get it back again.
Once files are moved to the new server, you can start the process of canceling the existing website hosting plan. Now, different hosting services have different norms for enclosure of the hosting plans. Some services give freedom to the clients to cancel the existing plan for web hosting instantly and save money. On the other hand, some hosting service may also like to refund your money, in case if you have canceled the hosting plan within 15 days or 30 days. It depends on the policy of the service provider, though most of the services offer a refund if clients choose to give up hosting plans within a certain period. Canceling the hosting plans with some services may not be easy at all. You have to undergo a little prolonged and daunting process to stop the hosting plan.
#2. Take Time to Download Files as Backup
A lot of files that exist on the present hosting server may not be required to be moved to a new server. That does not mean these files are not important for your business. They may be extremely necessary or important. So, in such a scenario, you need to download these files from your present hosting server. It is a good practice to download all the website related files on your local computer. Once they have been downloaded, you need to get prepared for the backup process. The process of taking backup should be done carefully. Make sure that no files are damaged during this backup process.
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From your hosting server, you can easily download the files anytime. For this, you need to have constant as well as a secured internet connection. If you are downloading confidential data, it is wise to download the data on a computer which is protected with antivirus or antimalware software. Experts can assist you in this regard. Generally, businesses outsource the whole task of migration of the website data to the new hosting server. Good hosting is essential for online business marketing and SEO.
#3. Start the Migration Process
When you have downloaded all your website data, migration of the server will become even easier. Now, you need to upload the data that you have downloaded. So, downloaded data from the old server will go to the new server. The concept is simple, and there should not be an issue in understanding this. Similar to download, you need a steady and reliable internet connection of the process of uploading the files to the new hosting server. The process has been illustrated in the following section:
- The first stage is to log in to your new hosting server. Go to the cPanel and then enter username and password. Once the login credentials are entered, hit the enter button to log in.
- Now, you shall be directed to the dashboard of your website hosting cPanel. Here, you shall come across plenty of options.
- Without wasting time checking the options, you need to click on the upload button at the top menu bar. Once clicked, a file exploring window shall appear. This window will ask you to locate the files are there needed to be uploaded.
- Select files and then click on “upload” or “Ok” button to start with uploading process.
Once the upload has been done, you can consider that server migration process for your website has been completed. Now, you can give up the existing plan with the old hosting service.
#4. Modifying Files, If Needed
Once your files are uploaded, you need to go for the modification process of your uploaded files. This is not mandatory. Many website owners feel that they need some changes to the files and thus they perform this task. When you have done modification or editing, you need to save your changes to see the changes visible on the website.
At the conclusion, it needs to be stated that the migration of the hosting server is not a simple thing. It is not complicated, though it can turn critical in some cases. So, follow the basic steps with precision is important. You should ensure that no mistakes occur during this process.
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