No one wants to run into hosting issues. These issues are often difficult to deal with and could potentially ruin the hosted websites if they don’t get resolved quickly and correctly. Despite hosting services becoming very reliable, there are still times when you run into issues that cannot be solved and switching to a new hosting service is the only solution.
Moving one site is easy. Moving a hundred (or more in some cases) WordPress sites is another story. You have to go through the required steps carefully to avoid errors and more headaches. Don’t worry, because you have these next few tips and tricks to help you keep the migration smooth and problem-free.
Preparing the New Hosting
The first task to complete is finding a new hosting service for your websites. You now have hundreds of options to choose from. You even have multiple types of hosting service to look into, including cloud VPS and a dedicated server if needed.
Choose wisely so you don’t have to go through the entire migration again. It is better to spend more energy looking into different hosting services and finding the right one than to deal with another catastrophic downtime.
Of course, you have the entire internet on your side. MangoMatter publishes detailed hosting reviews that you can use as a starting point. You can even dig deeper and find hosting providers in Australia if you would rather deal with a local company with experience and insight.
Choosing a Migration Method
The most obvious way of moving your WordPress sites to the new hosting service is through the new hosting company’s migration service. Many hosting services now offer a free migration service to win more business. This is an offer you don’t want to miss since you can just sit back while experienced server admins handle everything for you.
You can also go the manual route. You basically back up your files and databases, download them to your computer, and then set up the sites manually on the new hosting server. It is a tedious process that takes a lot of time, but it’s an approach that also allows you to do some cleaning and maintenance in the process.
Third-party services and WordPress backup plugins often support server-to-server migration. You also have more advanced tools like WGET or Rsync through SSH if you are familiar with the process.
Managing the Move
Choosing the most effective migration method is only the beginning. You still have to go through with the actual migration of your websites. In the case of manual migration (or one that requires a lot of manual work), avoiding mistakes is crucial.
Try to focus on one site at a time and make sure you test the site carefully before moving on to the next one. As mentioned before, you can save time and a lot of bandwidth by doing a server-to-server migration instead of manual download-then-upload.
As long as you remain focused, the migration should not be a problem. WordPress is designed to be very flexible and easy to maintain, and the sites will be up and running on their respective domain names once the migration is completed.