Move Existing Websites From Your Old Provider – How To Transfer Web Hosting

If you host your website with another hosting company and want to change over to UK Secure Web Hosting, then we can do the move for you – Simply open a support help desk ticket once you have signed up with your request and let us take the stress away from you!

– Or you can move hosts yourself by using the following details:

How Transfer Your Web Hosting Account

cPanel Web Hosting Transfers cPanel Web Hosting Transfers:

If your existing hosting company uses the cPanel, then it’s easy to transfer your whole account over to us in one hit – Which includes all of your website files, databases, email boxes and messages etc.  There are two easy ways –

  • Open a support ticket and include your cPanel login details from your existing hosts and we’ll transfer everything for you.
  • Or you can upload a cPanel created backup to your new UK Secure Web Hosting account by using the following steps:

1. Create a full backup at your current host via your cPanel.

2. Upload the full backup file (.rar, .gz etc) to your new UK Secure Web Hosting account – Upload the file to the ‘public_html’ folder via FTP or use the cPanel.

3. Open a support ticket and ask us to restore your backup.

4. Once completed, check the temporary URL link (that is included within your ‘New Hosting Account’ email the we sent to you) that your restored website on the UK Secure Web Hosting server is displaying correctly.

5. Change the nameserver (DNS) settings of your domain name to point to our servers. The new nameserver details are also included in your ‘New Hosting Account’ email that you will receive from us – Note: Nameserver (DNS) changes can take up to 24 hours to take full effect, although it normally only takes a few hours.

Finally – Keep the site live on your old hosting for a few days until you are sure the new DNS settings have been propagated.  When you are happy that everything is working, you can then cancel your old hosting account.

Another Way To Transfer Your Website Another Way To Transfer Your Website From Your Old Host:

If you are currently using a host who runs a custom system who doesn’t use the cPanel, then you can move your hosting account using the following details –

Before you Start:

First, you will need to decide what you need to move over to UK Secure Web Hosting.  You’ll need to find out if your website is a static site (made up usually of HTML files and images) or a dynamic site that uses a MySQL database (almost all content management systems and online shops are database driven – This includes Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, OSCommerce, Magento etc.). If your site is database driven, then there will be a configuration script that details database settings (config.php), if you are unsure where this is then it is best to check the documentation for the product you are using.  When you move your site this file will need to be edited, as your database name will have changed.

Step by Step Guide:

  1. Sign up for a web hosting plan with UK Secure Web Hosting:
    Within 5-10 minutes of signing up for your web hosting plan you will receive a welcome email with the details of your new hosting account. If you haven’t transferred your domain over yet, then you’ll need to use the IP address to access our server.
  2. Download all of your website files from your old host to your computer:
    Your old host will have FTP access to download all of these files.  Your files will often be in a directory called www or public_html. It’s often worth checking inside the control panel at your current host to see if there is an option to compress all of these files into one file (we support the uploading and decompression of .tar.gz and .zip files) and to download and upload your site is much quicker.
  3. Export your databases (if applicable):
    Your old host’s control panel should contain some way of managing your databases. What you are looking to do is export your database as an .sql file. If they are running PHPMyAdmin then you should be able to export the SQL file in .tar.gz format which is compressed and quicker.
  4. Create your MySQL database via the cPanel, and your MySQL users and upload your database (if applicable):
    Before you can use your MySQL database on our hosting you’ll need to do 4 things:

    1. Create a new MySQL database
    2. Create a new MySQL user
    3. Give the user permissions to the database
    4. Upload your .sql file to the database using phpMyAdmin

    You can accomplish steps 1-3 by clicking on the “MySQL Databases” link from inside your cPanel. Once this is done, click on “phpMyAdmin” from the cPanel home screen.
    If you have a large database that you need us to import for you, then please upload the SQL file to your home directory and put in a support ticket.

  5. Upload your files and update any configuration files:

    You need to login to the FTP server – these details are provided in your welcome email.

    Once logged in you’ll see a folder called public_html (there is also a link called www, this is a shortcut to public_html) – This is the directory you’ll need to upload your website files into. Your index file will need to be called index.php, index.html or index.htm – Please note the lower case, file names are cAsE-seNsiTive. We recommend that you only use lower-case for all of your file names.

    Once you’ve uploaded all of your files, you then may need to re-configure your scripts. You will have all of the details needed to connect to your MySQL database from Step 4. The database host is ‘localhost’. The home directory of your account is /home/<username> and so the home directory of your website will be /home/<username>/public_html – please replace <username> with the username you use to login to cPanel and FTP.

  6. Re-create your e-mail accounts in our cPanel:
    Now you’ve exported your data from your old host, you need to create your email addresses in our cPanel, so that when you change your nameservers the email will start flowing into your inbox. Log into your new cPanel with the details provided in your welcome email, and look for the email section. To create email addresses simply click on “Email Accounts”. You’ll want to make sure that all of these are setup before you change your nameservers.


    If you get stuck then please don’t panic, we’ll help you – Just open a support ticket.