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Migrating Your cPanel Site from Another Host to IX-ONE DOMAIN HOST

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Last Updated: June 25, 2015 10:17 AM

If you want to migrate your site hosted by another company to IX-ONE DOMAIN HOST, 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 your current host.
  2. Restore those backups at IX-ONE DOMAIN HOST.
  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 your current host.

To Backup Your cPanel Account at Your Current Host

  1. Log in to your cPanel account.
  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.

Make sure you know where all of these files are stored so you can find them for the next step.

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 your current host, 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 Databases.
  10. Click Choose File, select the MySQL backup you generated at your current host, 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 your current host, and then click Upload.

That's it! You've successfully moved your website from your current host to us.

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.