Migrations go wrong when people rush the DNS switch. The trick is to make the cutover invisible. Boring, ordered steps:
- Lower your DNS TTL to 300s a day before you migrate. This is the step everyone skips and everyone regrets.
- Copy everything to the new host — files + database — but don't touch DNS yet.
- Test the new host via its temp URL or your hosts file. Confirm the site fully works there before anyone else sees it.
- Put the old site in a brief read-only/maintenance mode, do a final DB sync (for dynamic sites/stores), so you don't lose orders placed mid-migration. 🛒
- Flip DNS. With a low TTL, propagation is minutes, not days.
- Keep the old host running for 72 hours while stragglers on cached DNS drain off. Then cancel.
Email is the sneaky part — plan MX and mailbox moves separately from the website.
Got a migration coming up? Tell us the source/destination and site type, and we'll flag the specific gotchas. 🚚
