How to Change Your Web Host Without Negatively Affecting SEO

How to Change Your Web Host Without Negatively Affecting SEO

Migrating your website from one host to another is no easy undertaking. Whether you’re relocating your site to save money with a new shared host or need the space and control that a virtual private server or a dedicated server offers, you must be careful every step of the way. One misstep during the execution and you could not only lose essential files; you could lose your current search engine ranking.

SEO Inc. can help with any migration issues and complete the migration process seamlessly. Check out our SEO Services, as once the site migration is completed, we will ensure you do not lose any of your hard-earned rankings and visibility. We’ll go into more detail, but here are the necessary steps you need to take when migrating your website:

• Create a Full Backup of Your Site
• Move the Website
• Test the New Website
• Update DNS Records TTL
• Update Your DNS Records

If you don’t currently have a high ranking, this may not seem like a big deal – so let me explain how it could impact your bottom line if you’re in the number one position for one or more keywords that generate the majority of your website traffic and sales.

Though it’s not entirely sure and does vary depending on the keyword phrase, many studies have concluded that a website in position one (1) gets about ⅓ of the total search engine traffic. Based on this information, getting 10,000 visits a month means roughly 30,000 searches a month go to that query. If you have a conversion rate of 1%, that means 100 consumers purchase from you. Let’s say that purchase is $100 – to keep the math friendly and straightforward. That earns you $10,000 a month.

Dropping down to the 3rd search result brings you to only 9% of that traffic, so you’d only get roughly 2700 monthly visits. At that same conversion rate, you’re earning just $2,700 monthly for a loss of 83% of your income! And if you fall off the first page, it gets even more dismal since an estimated 75% of clicks go to the first page of search results.

Now that you have a better understanding of why you must take steps to preserve your search ranking during a server migration let’s discuss how to get it done the right way. This assumes you’ve already chosen the new host and don’t need guidance in making a choice.

Create a Full Backup of Your Site

In WordPress, you can download your site files and export your MySQL database in phpMyAdmin.

Follow these steps:

1. Log in to your web hosting account’s cPanel. Click File Manager.
2. Click public_html to access your site’s files or the directory for your website if you host multiple domains.
3. Compress all the files and folders.
4. Download the compressed file to your computer.
5. Download wp-config.php to your laptop.

Now that you have the files, it’s time to export your database.

1. In your cPanel, click phpMyAdmin.
2. Select the database associated with the WordPress installation you’re moving. Click Export.
3. Select SQL format. Click the Go Button.
4. This will download the file to your computer.

If unsure, use a plugin like BackupBuddy, BackWPup, or a premium backup service like VaultPress.

Move the Website

In the case of WordPress, this involves importing your MySQL database into one on your new web host, updating the wp-config.php file, and replacing the default wp-content folder with your old one.

Follow these steps:

1. Create a new WordPress database on your new host.
2. In your cPanel, click MySQL database.
3. Create a new database with a name that’s easy to associate with your site.
4. Create a unique username and secure password.
5. Add the user to your new database. Give the user all privileges.
6. Keep the database name, username, and password, as you’ll need to update the information in your wp-config file in a bit.

Now, it’s time to edit your wp-config file. Open the wp-config.php file from the backup you downloaded.

1. Look for the define(‘DB_NAME,’ ‘db_name’) line, and edit the name to match the database name at your new host.
2. Look for the define(‘DB_USER,’ ‘db_user’), line, and edit the username to match the username associated with the database at the new host.
3. Look for the define(‘DB_PASSWORD,’ ‘db_pass’) line, and edit the password to match the password associated with the database at the new host.

Save the changes to your wp-config.php file.

Now, it’s time to import the database from your old host to the new database you created.

1. Open cPanel and launch phpMyAdmin.
2. Click Import.
3. Navigate to the file on your hard drive and uncheck “Partial Import.”
4. Click Go.

This imports your database from your old host to your new one.

Next, we upload the files to your new host.

1. Connect to your new host via FTP.
2. Choose the directory where you want to upload the files. If you only host a single site, upload them to the public_html directory.
3. Unzip the compressed file backup from your hard drive and upload the files via FTP.
4. Replace the wp-config.php file from the compressed file upload with the new version you edited in the previous steps.

If you don’t feel confident enough to handle this, use the Duplicator plugin or see if your new host will transfer everything. Many hosts will do it for free.

Test the New Website

After everything is moved over, check all the files and pages to ensure nothing’s missing.

Update DNS Records TTL

One day before you migrate, update your DNS records’ time to live (TTL) from 24 hours (86400 seconds) to five minutes, or 300 seconds. If you have issues, ensure your web host supports this feature.

Update Your DNS Records

Change your domain records to point to the new host servers. Changing your DNS records can take up to 48 hours to reflect the change, so make sure the website stays active at the old host for two days. After those two days, the site should send traffic to the new host so that you can close the old account.

If you have any questions or concerns about migrating your WordPress site from one host to another, please get in touch with us for help.