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Migrating Your cPanel Site from HostGator to COMPANY_NAME

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Last Updated: June 25, 2015 10:17 AM

If you want to migrate your site hosted by HostGator to COMPANY_NAME, you can use cPanel's backup features. This will move your website, its databases, as well as the email accounts you have set up on cPanel.

A quick note about email — if you follow these instructions, your email will continue working like it did before. However, if you change your domain's nameservers to point to our nameservers, it might stop your email from working.

Overview

Though this process has a number of steps, you can complete them in about an hour. Here's what to do:

  1. Download all of your backups from HostGator.
  2. Restore those backups at COMPANY_NAME.
  3. Preview your site on our servers.
  4. Make it live.

It's pretty easy.

Backing Up Your Site

Before you get started, we recommend purchasing and setting up your cPanel account with us. After you get that completed, start backing up your site at HostGator.

To Backup Your HostGator Site

  1. Log in to your cPanel account at HostGator.
  2. In the Files section, click Backup Wizard.
  3. Click Backup.
  4. Click Home Directory.
  5. Click Home Directory, and then click Go Back.
  6. Click MySQL Databases.
  7. Click each of your databases' names to download a backup of it, and then click Go Back.
  8. Click Email Forwarders & Filters.
  9. Click each of your domain names to download a backup of its forwarders, click System Filter Info, and then click Go Back.

You should move all of these files into one location on your desktop so you can easily find them.

Restoring Your Site

Now that you have all of your backups, you can restore them on your cPanel shared hosting account.

To Restore Your Backups

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Web Hosting.
  3. Next to the cPanel account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. In the Files section, click Backup Wizard.
  5. Click Restore.
  6. Click Home Directory.
  7. Click Choose File, select the Home Directory backup you generated at HostGator, and then click Upload.

    NOTE: This can take a while depending on the size of your backup.

  8. After the restore completes, close the new window that opened, and then click Go Back.
  9. Click MySQL Databses.
  10. Click Choose File, select the MySQL backup you generated at HostGator, and then click Upload.
  11. Close the new window that opened, and repeat the previous step for each database you backed up. When you're done, click Go Back.
  12. Click Email Forwarders & Filters.
  13. Click Choose File, select the forwarders or filters backups you generated at HostGator, and then click Upload.

That's it! You've successfully moved your website from HostGator to cPanel.

Previewing Your Site

To make sure everything works before moving your DNS, you can preview your site.

To Preview Your Site

  1. In cPanel, go to the cPanel tab at the top of the page.
  2. In the Domains section, click Preview Website.
  3. Next to the domain you're using, click Preview.

Some types of websites, including WordPress®, will have issues with their CSS when you preview them. This is normal and, unfortunately, difficult to fix. However, when you're site's live, everything will function normally.

If everything looks fine, you can update your DNS at your domain registrar to point to your cPanel shared hosting. Just update your primary A record (@) with your hosting account's IP.

Updating Your DNS

To find your hosting account's IP address, go to the cPanel tab at the top of the page. Your Websites IP Address displays on the left.

  • If your domain name is registered with us, you can update your primary A Record (@) to your cPanel IP address in the DNS Manager (more info).
  • If your domain name is registered elsewhere, contact your registrar for help updating your DNS.