Moving a website isn’t as easy as clicking copy/paste on your source code and moving it to a different hosting service. By following a few simple steps, as provided by Google, you can move your website without losing all of your existing information and website traffic.

Google provides these steps on how to move website.

1. Setup new hosting

2. Start the site move

3. Monitor Traffic

4. Shut down old hosting

What is a Site Move? 

Sometimes, you may find that you need to move your website.  Maybe your hosting service is going out of business, or perhaps you found a better deal somewhere else.  Moving your site is not something that should be taken lightly, though. You need to determine if you need to change your site’s URL in order to move to the new hosting service, and your move should be timed to coincide with your site’s lowest traffic periods. If your site goes down without any explanation, you are liable to lose site visitors.

URL Modifications

Changing your URL doesn’t have to mean that you change the name of your website.  It can be as simple as changing the protocol, like changing http:// to https://. You could also change the domain and move your URL from .com to .net, or vice versa. The only other thing to consider is your mobile site traffic, because the URL modifications may be different for the mobile websites.  These changes would need to be discussed with your new hosting service, because they are the only ones who are going to be able to give you definitive answers on this topic.

Without URL Changes

Moving your site without having to change your URL is a fairly straightforward endeavor. The first thing that you need to do is set up your new infrastructure. Once that is accomplished, all you need to do is begin your website migration.  It is important to monitor your traffic during the move, because you can lose views during a move due to the site being inaccessible.  Once the move is complete, you simply need to shut down your old hosting service, and the move will be complete.

With URL Changes  

If your URL needs to be altered to fit into a new hosting service, the website migration process is a little more complicated. The first step is the same in that you need to set up a new website infrastructure. In this case, you need to set up a URL mapping that will lead visitors from the old URL to the new one.  There may not be many changes to the URL itself, but it is often enough to lead a visitor to an entirely different website. Once you’ve done that, the remaining steps are the same.  You simply need to monitor the traffic, and when the migration is finished, you shut down your old site hosting.

While there are more than a few steps to follow to make sure that moving a website is successful, it is not as complicated as you might think.  Spending a little time reading up on the Google steps can save you a lot of trouble in the long run.