The Easiest Way to Migrate Your WordPress Site (and Why You Might Need To)

If you manage a WordPress site, there may come a time when you’ll want to change your web hosting service.

Why Would You Need to do This?

Our users report three common situations when a site migration becomes necessary:

1. Changing service
   You’ve decided to move to a different host (or a different service at the same one) because of different requirements or you’ve found a more affordable option.
2. Problems with your existing host
   Your host is experiencing problems (or has been hacked), which means your website is offline or unsafe.
3. A new version of your site
   You are ready to launch a new version of your site and you need to migrate it from your testing or staging server to the live site.

Migrating your site to a new host or server can be a daunting task. The biggest risks involve data loss and website downtime — which may then lead to unexpected costs if you need to employ someone to fix it up.

The easiest way to ensure a smooth transition is to automatically maintain off-site backups and use those to migrate your site.

Put Your Automated Backups to Work

Having a recent and easily-accessible backup is your contingency plan for accidental damage, malware, and brute-force attacks. Many website owners rely on backups provided and managed by their host. However, this doesn’t include the option to restore your backup to a new site — especially if the new site is hosted elsewhere.

Jetpack’s restore service can be used for website migrations and will transfer your entire database, all your plugins, settings, and themes, as well as all your content and images.

You can use your website backup to clone your site instead of downloading your content or manually managing your files with FTP.

Get Your Website Up and Running Faster

One of the many benefits of having a quality website backup available at your fingertips is that you can perform your migration whenever you want.

Jetpack makes it easy to manage it yourself — saving you both time and money because you don’t have to hire anyone or wait on support staff. This gives you total control over when your website is migrated so you can choose your website’s low-traffic periods to minimize interruptions.

Jetpack’s migrations mean your site will be up and running quickly. Depending on your site, downtime could mean a loss of income or reduced search engine rankings. High-traffic sites that generate revenue, like eCommerce, subscription, or advertising sites are particularly sensitive to downtime.

Receive Help Whenever You Need It

It’s normal to be nervous about moving your site, but you don’t have to do it alone. Jetpack’s plans all provide access to expert support. If you have any questions along the way, you can ask one of our dedicated Happiness Engineers.

Next Steps: Compare plans and choose the right one for your site.