How to Move Your Website to a New Host: A UK Guide

Short answer: switching hosting provider takes a couple of hours of actual work and about 48 hours for DNS to settle. The order matters more than the tooling. Copy the site to the new host first, test it there, move the email, and only then change the nameservers. Doing it the other way round is what causes the outages people dread. Any plan level will host a straightforward migration; if you want a staging copy to test against, you need a WordPress plan.

Looking for plans rather than guidance? Our web hosting plans start at £39 a year and renew at £39, migration is free, and we will do the move for you if you would rather not do it yourself.

When It Is Worth Switching Hosts

Most people change hosting provider for one of four reasons: the renewal price jumped, the site got slow, support stopped being useful, or they lost confidence after an incident. Our guide to five signs it is time to leave your current host covers the decision itself.

If the renewal price is what prompted this, check what you are being asked to renew at rather than what you originally paid. Introductory pricing that trebles on renewal is the most common reason people move twice in two years. Our breakdown of annual versus monthly billing and our guide to low cost UK hosting both cover what to look for.

Worth being clear about one thing: migration will not fix a slow site if the slowness is in the site rather than the server. A bloated theme and forty plugins will be slow on any host. If performance is the motive, diagnose first.

Before You Start

Five things to have in hand before you touch anything:

• A full backup you have actually downloaded. Files and database, stored somewhere other than the old host.
• Registrar access. Confirm you can log in to wherever the domain is registered, not just the hosting panel. If you cannot, sort that out first.
• A list of every email address on the domain, with mailbox sizes.
• A note of anything unusual: cron jobs, custom PHP settings, SSL certificates you paid for, third-party integrations pointed at your server IP.
• The current PHP version, so you can match it initially and upgrade deliberately afterwards rather than accidentally during the move.

If Your Site Needs an Old PHP Version

This is the migration that usually stalls. An older site, a bespoke application, or something built on a framework that was never updated will run on the PHP version it was written for and fall over on anything newer. Plenty of hosts have dropped everything below 8.0, which leaves that site with nowhere to go.

We offer PHP 5.6 through to 8.5 on all plans, switchable per site. That means you can move the site as it is, on the version it already runs on, get it working on the new host, and then treat the upgrade as a separate job with a separate rollback point. Trying to do both at once is how people end up unable to tell whether the migration or the version change broke something.

Our guide to PHP hosting covers version switching in more detail.

The Order to Do Things In

1. Set up the account on the new host

Create the hosting account and add the domain, but do not change the nameservers yet. Most hosts, including us, will let you preview the site on a temporary address so you can test before going live.

2. Copy the site across

For WordPress, a migration plugin handles this in one pass. Our guide to the migration tools available in Switchweb covers the options, and we will do the migration for you if you would rather not.

3. Test on the temporary address

Click through the site properly. Check forms submit, images load, the checkout works if you have one, and the admin area behaves. Fix problems now, while the live site is still serving visitors from the old host.

4. Set up email and let it sync

Create the mailboxes on the new host and copy the mail across before the DNS change. Our guide to migrating email covers the process. Email is where migrations most often go wrong, because messages arriving during the changeover can land on either server.

5. Lower the DNS TTL

A day before you switch, drop the TTL on your DNS records to five minutes. This makes the changeover propagate faster and gives you a quick route back if something is wrong.

6. Change the nameservers

Now point the domain at the new host. Our guide to pointing your domain at new hosting explains the mechanics, and what DNS is covers the background if the terminology is unfamiliar.

7. Confirm SSL, then wait

Check the certificate has issued on the new host and the site loads over HTTPS. Then leave the old account running for at least a week. Cancelling immediately is the single most common way people lose email that arrived mid-migration.

Moving From a Website Builder

Migrating away from a hosted builder is a different job, because there is no database to copy. The content has to be rebuilt or imported rather than moved.

For Wix specifically, see Wix site migration for UK businesses and Wix to WordPress migration. Our note on Wix hosting limitations explains what prompts most of these moves, and the hidden costs of Wix and Squarespace covers the commercial side.

If you like the builder but want proper email, there is a middle path: use us for email only and leave the site where it is.

Sites built with a page builder inside WordPress are a different case again, and Elementor in particular has its own failure modes around cached CSS and stored design data. If that is what you are moving, see migrating an Elementor site.

The Mistakes That Cause Outages

• Changing nameservers first. Traffic arrives at an empty account.
• Cancelling the old host too early. Keep it a week minimum, ideally a month.
• Forgetting email. The website works, nobody notices for a day, then someone asks why they have had no enquiries.
• Not checking the SSL certificate. Browsers show a security warning and visitors leave.
• Upgrading PHP during the move. If something breaks you will not know whether it was the migration or the version change. Match first, upgrade after.
• Missing hardcoded URLs. Search and replace the old domain in the database if the domain is changing too.

What Plan You Actually Need

For most sites moving between hosts, the entry plan is the honest answer. It starts at £39 a year and renews at £39, which matters more than the first-year figure when the reason you are moving is a renewal increase. Migration is free at any plan level, as are SSL and daily backups with 30-day retention.

Two things push you up a level. If you want a staging copy to rehearse the migration or test changes after it, that is on WordPress plans. If you are moving several sites at once, look at multi-site hosting rather than separate accounts.

Email is not a reason to upgrade. Mailboxes are unlimited with 10GB each on every plan, so a domain with fifteen addresses on it costs the same as one with two. If you want to test before committing, the free trial needs no card and lets you stand the site up on the new host before you touch DNS.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will my site go down during a migration?

It should not. Done in the order above, the old site keeps serving visitors until DNS switches over, and by then the new one is tested and ready.

How do I change hosting provider without losing email?

Create the mailboxes on the new host and sync the mail across before you change any DNS, then leave the old account open for at least a week afterwards. The risk window is the period when some mail servers still have the old MX records cached and some have the new ones, and messages can land on either side. Keeping both live through that window means nothing is lost, only split between two places.

How long does DNS propagation take?

Usually a few hours, occasionally up to 48. Lowering the TTL beforehand shortens it considerably.

Will migrating hurt my search rankings?

Not if the URLs stay the same and the site stays available. Google handles host changes routinely. Ranking damage comes from downtime, broken URLs or missing redirects, not from moving as such.

Can I move just my email and leave the website?

Yes, and it is a common arrangement. You point the MX records at one provider and leave the A record with another.

Do you migrate sites for customers?

Yes, free of charge. See our switching process for what is involved.

Explore more

If you are still comparing options, our guide to low cost web hosting in the UK, our breakdown of what is included in a hosting price and our comparison page are the places to start.

For specific platforms, see migrating an Elementor site and Wix to WordPress migration. On the technical side, what DNS is, SPF, DKIM and DMARC and our WordPress security checklist are the ones worth reading after a move.

Our free trial lets you test a migration before committing.