Guideline for a Smooth Website Migration Experience
Table of Contents Test the New Site and Retest Make a copy of your website Check site speed Update DNS (Domain Name System) Settings Test Redirects Conclusion
Website Migration Why Migrate a Website? Web Hosting and Web Hosts Risks Involved in Website Migration Concern of Website Migration Process Why Website Migration Fails? Smooth Website Migration Experience
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Website Migration ďƒ‰ Website migration is when a website experiences changes in the location, platform, layout, content, architecture, or in the user experience of the website and moves from one environment to another, or the domain name of a website changes. It occurs whenever a fundamental change takes place in a website’s URL structure.
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Why Migrate a Website? YELLOW ďƒ‰ Usually website migration takes place when you are upgrading to a better form of hosting or you are moving to a new web host. Since you will be shifting your website from one server to another, there will be certain challenges and risks that you will face.
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Web Hosting and Web Hosts Web hosting is a professional service provided by web hosting companies in which server space is sold or leased for a website’s files to be stored on it. The web host provides the service, server space and technology that is required in order to make a website accessible to everyone over the Internet. Hosting can be- shared, dedicated, VPS, cloud, WordPress and Reseller. The hosting plans are offered for both Linux and Windows and termed accordingly. For example, “ Windows Reseller Hosting” and “Linux Reseller Hosting” make it clear that a particular reseller hosting plan is meant for which operating system. 5
Web Hosting Companies 6
The market is full of web hosting companies. Some of these have established themselves as the best website hosting company or as the best Windows hosting company. There are those hosts that provide outstanding service in cloud hosting and have earned the reputation of being the best cloud server hosting provider or as the best cloud hosting company. One must make an informed choice while selecting the best option out of so many.
Risks Involved in Website Migration 7
If the migration has not taken place properly then the website won’t function correctly after that and will result in poor user experience. There is also the risk of losing data during the migration. There might not only be content loss but also stagnation or inflexibility in templates as well as in content. If the migration had not been handled properly it will affect the website’s performance on search engines leading to a loss in search engine and page ranking. There is also the possibility for your site to be offline while fixing issues. The possibility of experiencing a lengthy website downtime can’t be ruled out.
Concern of Website Migration Process 8
The main concern of website management is to ensure minimum loss in website traffic and avert loss in the ranking of the website.
Why Website Migration Fails? 9
This is a result of either one or a combination of many factors, such as inadequate planning or not having a proper checklist to follow. Lacking awareness as well as knowledge related to the process of website migration can also lead to failures that had not been foreseen.
Smooth Website Migration Experience 10
Let us now take a look at certain points in the following slides that will ensure a smooth website migration experience. Â The simplest yet effective way is to not take down your existing website until you are sure that your new website is working properly. This will ensure that your existing users do not get adversely impacted if there are any issues.
1-800-123 -8156 Whoa! That’s a big number, aren’t you proud?
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Test the New Site and Retest Ensure that your website does not have any technical errors and performs as expected by testing it on the new servers. Run these tests on both, desktop and mobile versions of the website as well as on different types of browsers. This testing should involve ensuring that all pages, posts and links not only appear but also perform properly. It should also be ascertained that the users can carry out all the interactions offered by the site including but not limited to searches, navigation, making purchases and signing into user areas. Retest the site when it is live, to ensure that it is still working as expected.
Make a copy of your website When you copy your existing website and upload it to your new server it enables you to test how well it performs in its new hosting environment. This will let you know if you need to make any changes. You should do this on a different domain or sub domain since you will want to keep your existing website operational at the same time. Retest the site when it is live, to ensure that it is still working as expected.
Check site speed Test the speed of the new site before launching it and compare that with the existing site. You want your new site to be crawled and indexed quickly by Google. If the server is performing well, this will happen swifter. You should check the speed of both the mobile and desktop versions. Accelerated site speed will ensure a better user experience and improve your website’s overall ranking.
Update DNS (Domain Name System) Settings You need to ensure that users are visiting your site once you are satisfied with its performance. For this purpose you will need to change your DNS settings. This will direct the new users to your new IP address.
Test Redirects Test if the redirects enabled on your website are still working on the new server and that there are no 404 errors.
Conclusion Website migration is an important step that can be challenging when one lacks proper information and is not aware of the risks involved and where that might lead to. Once one is equipped with knowledge, one can take all the necessary precautions as well as steps to ensure that migration turns out to be a smooth experience.
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