Can my website move to another host without going offline?

What downtime means in practice

Downtime is the time your site does not load for a visitor. During a migration it happens in two ways. The first is cancelling the old environment before the new one is ready. The second is quieter: the address already points to the new server while the files, or the certificate, are not there yet. The visitor then gets an error, or a warning that the connection is not secure.

Both are avoidable by reversing the order: build and test first, switch second. As long as the old environment keeps running until all traffic arrives at the new side, there is no moment when nobody lands anywhere.

DNS and TTL: why the switch itself is short

Your domain name points to an IP address through DNS. That is the only link that really has to change during a migration. How fast that change takes effect depends on the TTL: the number of seconds other parties are allowed to remember the old pointer. If it is set to 24 hours, visitors can keep landing on the old server for a day.

That is why the TTL goes down to five minutes for example, and longer in advance than the old value itself: with a TTL of 24 hours, at least two days ahead. Cut it closer and a provider that fetched the old value just before will hold on to it for another full day anyway. At the moment of the switch the gap is then a few minutes instead of a day. Visitors who still land on the old server during those minutes simply see your site: it is still there.

MX records: what happens to your email

The same domain carries MX records alongside the website. They decide where your email goes, and they are separate from the record that points to your site. If only the website moves, those records usually stay untouched.

Usually, because two cases run differently. If your domain has no MX record at all, mail goes by standard to the same server as the website; move that address and your mail moves with it unnoticed. A real MX record is set first in that case. And if your mail runs on that same old hosting environment, it cannot be cancelled until your mailboxes live somewhere else. Both are checked beforehand; that is exactly what the inventory step is for.

If your mail moves too, the mailboxes are created and filled on the new side before the MX record is switched. What exactly transfers and who arranges what is agreed up front; that depends on where your mail is hosted now.

The SSL certificate

The new server needs its own certificate before the address switches over. Otherwise the first visitor arrives at a warning that the connection is not private, and that costs more trust than an hour of downtime. The certificate is therefore requested and tested on the new environment while the old one is still live. Hosting and maintenance include the certificate, renewal included.

The steps

1. Inventory: where the site lives, where the domain name lives and where the email lives.
2. Copy the files and the database to the new environment.
3. Get the site running and testable on a temporary address, with a certificate.
4. Check everything: forms, payments, redirects, images and speed.
5. Lower the TTL at your domain registrar, further in advance than the old TTL itself.
6. Take one more fresh copy of the data just before the switch, so no order or message falls through.
7. Switch the DNS record to the new server.
8. Watch until all traffic arrives on the new side; the old environment stays up meanwhile.
9. Only then cancel the old hosting, and not before your email runs somewhere else too.

A timeline in hours

For an ordinary business site, preparing and testing usually takes half a working day to a full one. The TTL goes down well before that. The switch itself is a matter of minutes; traffic moves across within roughly fifteen minutes afterwards. The old environment stays up for another week as a fallback.

For a webshop with many products, integrations and live orders, the preparation grows. You hear up front what it will be in your case. Exact timings to the minute do not exist: a slow registrar, or a provider that ignores the TTL, can stretch it.

What goes wrong when you do it yourself

The most common mistakes: cancelling the old hosting before the new one runs; switching the DNS record while the database has not moved yet; moving the MX records by accident so email stops; forgetting that the certificate has to be issued again on the new server; and losing orders or form submissions that came in between the copy and the switch.

None of these is complicated. They are only all invisible until it has already gone wrong.

What a migration costs

What a migration costs depends on two things: how big the site is, and whether hosting and maintenance come with it. A static site of a few pages is less work than a webshop with a database, integrations and live orders. You hear one fixed amount for your case up front, and it does not change afterwards.

The amounts live in one place, so they cannot drift apart: the pricing page. It lists what each service includes and what it excludes.

One thing is not possible: a site on Shopify, Wix or Squarespace runs on that provider’s own system and cannot move to a private server. I can manage it there, or rebuild it here.