What does a WordPress Website Migration Mean
Unlike the classic html websites, WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) platform built in PHP. Being built in PHP means that all the data is stored in a database and gets called in as a user navigates each page, as oppose to being hard coded in html. This system greatly increases productivity for developers as they only need to build Themes, which are template of rules where all the data get’s called into. But this system also makes it more difficult to migrate the website because the functions used to call the data have to be updated and the database needs to transfer and be updated as well.
Owning Your Data
If you’ve ever requested your data from a WordPress developer make sure that your database is also included or else they really only gave you the template of your website without your data. Look for a file called mysql.sql.
Pro Tip: Ask your developer for this file, if they don’t know what it is, fire them, they don’t know the basics of WordPress or web development and will cost you more working with them than the few dollars you’re saving from hiring a real developer.
Exporting your WordPress Files and Data
Exporting your complete website with your database isn’t hard, but using this method to migrate is the most complex. As explained earlier, making the website functional on a different host/domain, it will require running some scripts to mass change functions, directories, and other small details. A task that can easily go wrong.
The future is now, however, and most things have been automated. There are several plugins out there that are able to download everything into a nice package that is then installed correctly in a new domain. Our personal favorite is called Duplicator.
EVERY WEBSITE MIGRATION IS UNIQUE, WE RECOMMEND CHECKING WITH EXPERIENCED SEO WEBSITE MIGRATION SPECIALISTS.
Search Engine Optimization, Redirects and Indexing
If you’ve had your website for any period of time, you have been indexed by search engines and established some ranking. Improperly migrating to a new domain can definitely set you back to square one in terms of SEO. You’ll want to, for about 6 months, maintain your old domain and setup redirects to your new domain. At the same time making efforts to index your new urls. SEO is a whole other topic that most developers neglect, but it is highly valuable.
Complicated Order
Some websites will create more trouble than others. The more plugins you use, the trickier it can be deciphering what is not working or where the change needs to be made. One special kind of migration is those dealing with subdomains, (shop.mywebsite.com). These are called multisite. There’s more prep work that goes into these on the database exportation and on the new host/domain. Each subdomain acts as it’s own website with it’s own plugins and themes. It’s a lot harder for a good developer to recover a botched multisite migration than it is to migrate it correctly the first time.
What your developer will need
- Domain Access
- Original Hosting Account
- New Hosting Account
- WordPress Admin Access
