Moving Your Site to a New Host? Here Are 41 Things That Will Break If You're Not Careful
Everybody talks about why to switch hosting providers. Fewer people talk about what happens right after you click that transfer button — and why your contact form stops working, your images disappear, and Google suddenly thinks your site is brand new.
Migrating a website isn't like moving apartments. It's more like performing surgery on a running engine. There are dozens of interconnected pieces, and pulling on one thread can unravel three others you didn't even know existed. Whether you're moving from a free plan to a paid tier, jumping ship from a slow shared host, or upgrading to a VPS for the first time, this guide covers the real stuff nobody puts in their migration tutorial.
Let's get into it.
Before You Touch Anything: The Prep Work That Saves You Later
The biggest migration mistakes happen before the migration even starts. Here's what to lock down first.
1. Take a full site backup — and test it. Not just a database export. A complete backup of your files, database, email accounts, and configuration files. Then actually restore it somewhere to confirm it works. A backup you've never tested is just a hope.
2. Document your current server environment. PHP version, MySQL version, any server-side modules your app depends on (mod_rewrite, cURL, etc.). Your new host might be running different versions, and that alone can break a WordPress site or a custom app.
3. Screenshot your DNS records. Every single one. A records, CNAME records, MX records, TXT records for email verification, SPF, DKIM — all of it. DNS panels can be confusing, and you'll want a reference when you're rebuilding on the other side.
4. List every third-party integration. Payment processors, CRM tools, email marketing platforms, analytics, chat widgets, form handlers. Each one may have a webhook URL, API key, or domain verification that needs to be updated after the move.
5. Note your SSL certificate setup. Is it a free Let's Encrypt cert? A paid cert? Tied to your old host's control panel? You'll need to reissue or transfer it. SSL doesn't move automatically.
The DNS Propagation Window: Your Site's Most Vulnerable 48 Hours
Here's the thing about DNS propagation that trips up first-timers: it's not instant. When you update your nameservers or A records, the change ripples across the internet gradually — and during that window, some visitors hit your old server while others hit the new one.
6. Keep your old hosting account active for at least 72 hours after pointing DNS to the new host. Don't cancel it the second you flip the switch.
7. Lower your TTL (Time to Live) values before you migrate. Drop them to 300 seconds (5 minutes) a day or two in advance. This shortens how long DNS resolvers cache your old IP, making the cutover faster and cleaner.
8. Use a propagation checker like whatsmydns.net to monitor when your new IP has spread globally. Don't assume it's done just because it works on your laptop.
9. Update your MX records separately if you're not moving your email hosting. A lot of people accidentally wipe their email routing while updating DNS for their website.
Database Disasters: What Goes Wrong Underground
For WordPress sites, e-commerce stores, or any CMS-backed site, the database is the heart of the operation. It's also where migrations quietly go sideways.
10. Export your database with the right encoding. UTF-8 mismatches between your old and new server can corrupt special characters — em dashes, apostrophes, accented names — throughout your content.
11. Check your database prefix. Some migration tools assume a default wp_ table prefix. If yours is different (a security best practice, actually), the import can fail silently.
12. Update your wp-config.php or equivalent config file with the new database name, username, and password. Sounds obvious. Still gets missed constantly.
13. Run a search-and-replace on hardcoded URLs in your database. Tools like Better Search Replace (for WordPress) or Interconnect/it's Search Replace DB script handle this. If your old domain or server path is baked into the database, pages will break or point to the wrong place.
14. Confirm database user permissions on the new host. Your database user needs SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, and DROP privileges at minimum.
SSL and HTTPS: The Stuff That Breaks Your Padlock
15. Reissue your SSL certificate on the new host before you update DNS. That way HTTPS is ready the moment traffic arrives.
16. Check for mixed content warnings after the move. If any images, scripts, or stylesheets are still loading over HTTP instead of HTTPS, browsers will flag your site as insecure. A plugin like Really Simple SSL can catch these automatically.
17. Update your WordPress site URL settings (or equivalent CMS settings) from HTTP to HTTPS if you weren't using HTTPS on the old host.
18. Verify your SSL covers subdomains if you're running a blog, shop, or app on a subdomain like shop.yourdomain.com.
Redirects, URLs, and SEO: The Silent Traffic Killers
This is where a lot of small business owners lose search rankings they spent months building.
19. Export your .htaccess redirect rules before migration and re-implement them on the new server. If you had 301 redirects from old blog post URLs to new ones, those need to come with you.
20. Verify your permalink structure is intact after the move. A WordPress permalink settings flush (just resave them) can fix a lot of 404 errors post-migration.
21. Set up Google Search Console on the new host and submit an updated sitemap. If your sitemap URL changed, update it.
22. Check your robots.txt file transferred correctly and isn't accidentally blocking search engine crawlers.
23. Crawl your site post-migration with a tool like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb. Look for 404s, redirect chains, and broken internal links.
Email, Forms, and Integrations: The Stuff That Stops Working Quietly
24. Test every contact form the day after migration. SMTP settings, mail server configurations, and spam filters all change between hosts.
25. Update SMTP credentials if you were using your old host's mail server to send transactional emails.
26. Reauthorize your email marketing integrations (Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc.) — especially if domain authentication records changed.
27. Recheck any Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat) workflows that use webhook URLs tied to your old server.
28. Update payment processor webhook URLs. Stripe, PayPal, and Square all need to know where to send event notifications. If those URLs changed, you'll miss payment confirmations.
29. Re-verify your domain in Google Analytics 4, Facebook Business Manager, and any ad platform that uses domain verification.
30. Check your CDN configuration. If you're using Cloudflare or a similar service, make sure the origin server IP is updated.
File Permissions, Caching, and Server Config Gotchas
31. Reset file permissions after upload. WordPress core files generally need 644 for files and 755 for directories. Wrong permissions cause mysterious errors.
32. Clear all caches — server-side, plugin-level, and CDN — after migration. You don't want visitors seeing a cached version of the old site on new infrastructure.
33. Check your PHP memory limit on the new host. If your old host had it set to 256MB and the new one defaults to 64MB, plugins and themes will start throwing errors.
34. Verify cron jobs transferred. Any scheduled tasks running via server cron need to be manually recreated on the new host.
35. Check error logs on the new server within the first 24 hours. Errors that don't show up as visible site problems often hide in the logs.
Final Checks Before You Call It Done
36. Test on mobile — not just desktop. A caching or CSS issue sometimes shows up on one and not the other.
37. Click through your checkout flow end to end if you run an online store. Every step.
38. Confirm your 404 page is loading correctly and styled properly.
39. Test site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. A new server environment can change your load times significantly — for better or worse.
40. Notify your team (even if it's just a contractor or VA) that the migration happened and what changed.
41. Set a calendar reminder to cancel your old hosting plan after the 72-hour propagation window closes. Otherwise you're paying for two hosts indefinitely.
The Bottom Line
A hosting migration isn't something to wing. The sites that come through cleanly are the ones whose owners treated the process like a project — with a checklist, a backup, and a plan for what to do when something inevitably goes sideways.
At BigFreeHost, we've seen startups lose days of traffic and weeks of SEO progress to migrations that could've gone smoothly with a little preparation. Use this list. Work through it methodically. And if you're moving to a new plan with us, our support team is around to help you through the technical bits that feel overwhelming.
Big moves don't have to mean big disasters. They just require a little more patience than most tutorials let on.
