Moving your site to a new server is a difficult decision. It involves downtime and there can be technical issues that can give you anxious moments. However, you need to have a checklist to ensure that all critical and small issues are addressed, timely and efficiently. A few points are recommended that you need to ensure during the switchover.

Coordinate with your new and previous hosts

The payment schedule with new host should be planned in such a way that you do not end up paying to two hosts for the same period. Try to begin it just a few days before the contract with previous host expires. It gives you some time to take back up and to clear payment dues, if any.

Back up

You should take back up of working site in your PC, and in a separate disc. Save a backup copy of all instructions, technical specifications that your previous host provided you such as file update details or email accounts. Besides, take back up of all your databases as well.

Update paths

For Linux hosting, update the paths to your script files, or PHP or CGI files. Your new host may have different way of handling SQL creation. So, update the paths of SQL along with all script files, and note down the instructions carefully.

Uploading files

If there are some scripts that call directories, the new directories on new server should be so named that they match. Remember to upload the directories’ contents that you saved as backup from old server.

Testing

The last important step is to test your site at new server. Verify that all hyperlinks, bookmarks, and interactive features are working as required.