This article will assist you with migrating a website from another web hosting company to InMotion Hosting. Please see our other article if your previous hosting provider uses cPanel.
Also, if you are moving a WordPress website to us, we have a guide in our WordPress Education channel titled “Easily Move WordPress Site to New Server“
The time frame to complete this process can really vary based on factors such as the size of your website/database, or download limitations set by your old host.
Evaluate your Site
The first thing you’ll want to do is evaluate your site. You’ll want to find out where in your previous host which folder your website files are stored. You will also want to find out if you are using any databases, and if so, how you can obtain a backup of them. It is best to contact your current hosting company to obtain this information as it does vary from web host to web host.
Download your Website Files
Next, you’ll want to download your website files from your previous host to your desktop. We recommend that you use FTP to perform this step. For more help with using FTP, please see the following link:
Export your Website Databases
If your website uses databases, you’ll want to obtain a backup of your databases. Instructions for doing this vary from host to host, so you’ll want to contact your previous host for assistance with this.
In case your old host offers phpMyAdmin like us, here is a link to a helpful article that covers How to Export a Database using phpMyAdmin.
Also, here is a link to an article that shows you how to Backup / Export a Database from SSH.
Upload your Website Files and Import your Databases
In this step, you will want to upload your website files using FTP into your public_html directory on your InMotion Hosting account. For further assistance with this, reference the “Getting Started Guide: FTP” link mentioned above.
If your website has a database, now is the time to import it to your InMotion Hosting Account. You’ll first want to create the databases within cPanel, and then import your database backup using phpMyAdmin. For further assistance with these steps, please see:
Creating, Importing, and Exporting MySQL Databases
Test your Website
After you’ve uploaded your website files and restored your databases (if applicable), your next step will be to test your website. You can test your website using your account’s temporary URL. To find your temporary URL, please see Testing your website using your Temporary URL for further assistance. If testing through the temporary url will not work for your site (some CMS applications do not work properly through the temporary url) you can edit your hosts file instead.
Setup your Email
If you have email addresses for your domain, such as [email protected], now is the time to set them up. For more help with creating and configuring your email accounts, please see the following link:
If you currently point your email (MX records) to a third party email service such as Google, you’ll need to update the MX records in your InMotion Hosting cPanel and ensure “remote mail exchange” is set. No email accounts need to be created on our servers as they reside on the third party providers servers. Please see our article on modifying MX records in cPanel for more information.
If you are using a third party spam filtering service that still delivers emails to our server, such as Postini, you’ll need to create those email accounts on our servers.
You can migrate the current emails from your previous host to our servers. Please see our guide on moving over the existing emails you currently have.
Point your Domain
After you’ve migrated your website to your InMotion Hosting account and setup your email addresses, you’ll now want to point your domain name away from your previous host and to your InMotion Hosting server. This can be accomplished by modifying your domain’s nameservers with your current registrar to:
ns1.inmotionhosting.com
ns2.inmotionhosting.com
If you are signed up as a Reseller (Not a VPS or Dedicated account) you will point the namesrvers to:
ns1.servconfig.com
ns2.servconfig.com
For more help with this, please see our DNS Modification Tutorial.
Test your Website Again
When you update your nameservers, it may take up to 24 hours before the new changes begin to take affect. We recommend that you test your website right after the nameserver change, and then again every 6 – 12 hours until 24 hours has elapsed since you initially updated your nameservers.
The InMotion Hosting Support Department is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you need any assistance with the steps above, feel free to contact us at any time.
Learn more about server management from our Managed VPS Hosting Product Guide.
Hello
I would like to tell you that I am having around 20 website that I have to migrate from inMotion to another hosting.
Is there any service that you provide to migrate all the websites to another hosting at a time, instead of migrate manually one by one.
Regards
Vladimir
I recommend contacting our Live Support team, so they can look at your specific plan and websites.
Thank you,
John-Paul
I am the webmaster for the Space Coast Parrothead Club and we currently have a website on Webs.com that we are not too enamored with. Is it possible for that website to be migrated to inmotionhosting and be able to retain the domain name we currently have? (spacecoastparrotheads.com)
Thanks for any advice you can give..
Cheers,
Bob
Hi, Bob. Some web builder sites don’t allow their users to migrate the site itself, so you will need to check with webs.com. But in either case, you can always point your domain to a new site hosted with us.
Thinking about migrating my website from Duda to you guys. Is there an easy way to do it? or do you provide migration services?
Yes, we have a website transfer service you can request from AMP by selecting “Website Transfer Request”.
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/amp/wtr
We have a transfer checklist that hopefully proves helpful for you.
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/website-transfers/inmotion-hosting-pre-website-transfer-checklist
And as always, we recommend you download a complete backup beforehand for archival.
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/backup-and-restore/backup-website-files-in-cpanel
Nice one. It is very informative article about migrate the website. I’m saving this for future reference.
Thanks.
I was planning to migrate my website. Thanks for sharing the information. Now i have got some idea about on which host and how to migrate my website. Thanks.
Hi there, I am planning to move my website to inmotion hosting but really unsure about the trasferring process of my website to new hosting, I am currently using ehost as my hosting company.
Is it possible for you guys to jump in and help me transfer my website? If it’s possible, I will start my first purchase with inmotion hosting.
Thanks so much
Lam
We have a website transfers team that can assist you with moving a website after you sign up for hosting. I’d suggest, during the purchase process, reaching out to our sales team and discussing the ins/outs of website transfers with them. They will be able to answer your questions and assist you through the process.
I am building my website on squarespace using a theme on there, how do i redirect my domain on cpanel so the domain points to squarespace?
thanks!
You will need to follow Squarespace’s directions since they do not host DNS records. Basically, you will need to follow this guide:
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205812378-Connecting-a-domain-to-your-Squarespace-site
In there, you will need to create some DNS records in cPanel (CNAME and A records):
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/domain-names/dns-nameserver-changes/add-cname-record
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/domain-names/dns-nameserver-changes/a-record-change
I hope this helps! Let me know if you need anything else.
i have 5 sites on godaddy and i want to tranfer host and domains to u guys is there a easy way to do it i dont mind it its takes a 2 or 3 days ? pls tell me it is heheheh so i can start right away
The easiest way would be to get a full backup from your current host, and upload it to our server, then request a restoration to live support so they can help you unpack the databases, and files.
Thank you,
John-Paul
Hi, I am currently an elderly non-business website owner with Simplesite. Been with them for 2 years but am now keen to move hosts to InMotion. I am not tech savvy and would like you do the transfer once I sign up.
My question is I am not aware of the current package except that it is registered as:
www.pioneer-generation.com and my email addess as above with a password.
Do let me know the next steps if I want the transfer done.
Hello Walter,
Thank you for contacting us. You can request a Website transfer from AMP.
Alternately, you can migrate the website yourself with the following steps:
Contact Simplesite, and requesting that they provide a full copy of your website.
Once you have a copy of your site, upload it to your server with us. Then, contact Live Support, and request that we unpack the site.
Thank you,
John-Paul
I already have an inmotion domain (you guys are the best I’ve used) but mainly just bought it for my email. There’s been an increase in my freelance work, so I want to build a site. I’m not very satisfied with wordpress, and I see you have dozens of tools to build on your server. I’m not great with web-coding so I would prefer a GUI instead of a combination GUI / code like joomla. I was wondering if it would make more sense (and how) to upload one of the open-source site builder tools not available on your repository and use that.. or use something like Jimdo to build and then export?
Hello Brian,
Thank you for contacting us. Many people upload and use 3rd party site builder tools, or open-source tools. But, what makes sense really depends on what you are comfortable with. I recommend trying several options, and seeing which one fits your needs and skillset.
Also, we offer BoldGrid, which is powered by WordPress, but you customize your website more easily.
Best Regards,
John-Paul
The domain transfer page consistently says that the authorization code from my existing registrar is not valid, this despite the fact that I’ve a) made repeated requests of the existing registrar (Startlogic) that always return the same code, b) allowed 24 hours to elapse to be certain there wasn’t some problem introduced by a delay, c) made the attempt several times, including starting over.
Any clues?
Hello Alan,
Sorry for the problems with the transfer of the domain. We would need the domain name in order to investigate the issue further. Please provide us that information and we will get back to you after investigating the issue in more depth.
I need to begin the process of transferring my existing website from Nexcess to InMotion. When speaking with the Sales department, I was told you would handle this for me and our site would remain live on the current server until it had be reviewed and tested on your server (2-7 days). Now I’m reading that I’ll have to put my website into a maintenance mode until the transition is complete. This won’t work since our business requires our clients to be able to place their orders 24/7. What other options are there?
Hello Debi,
Thank you for contacting us. It is not required to put your site in maintenance mode to migrate it, but it can reduce syncing issues with sites such as shopping carts. Especially if there are transaction occurring at the time of transfer.
I recommend contacting Live support, and possibly scheduling the migration during “less busy” times to reduce the chance of issues.
Then, be sure to test and compare the 2 sites (old and new) for consistency, before finally pointing to our servers.
Thank you,
John-Paul
Hi! I want to know 2 things .. first of all, how do I upload a WordPress theme I have just bought in themeforrest. And the second thing; I have already a webpage: emporiosound.com .. but I made it in WEBS and it actually suck, thats why I am changing it to a WordPress hosted in here. WEBS has a tool to transfer your domain: it sent me a code I should place somewhere in order to tranfer my domail. Thanks
Hello,
We have an article on how to install a third party theme in WordPress. This should help you with your ThemeForest theme.
As for transferring your domain name, you can check our article on how to transfer a domain to us within your AMP.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
How do I do that? And now I can’t seem to access the new one I started with BoldGrid 🙁
Hello Jennifer,
The wayback machine is located here. Enter your domain name and then pick a date to see what it looked like at that point. If it was an HTML site, you may be able to save it to your local machine and then re-upload it to your server.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
We had GetMyWebsite / Web-Link as our host. They seem to have disappeared.
Unfortunately, not. If your website was static, you can possibly use the wayback machine website to recover it.
Is it possible to get my files from a host that has mysteriously vanished?
Hello Jennifer,
What host were you using? If you can not connect to the servers then there would be no way to retrieve your files.
Best Regards,
TJ Edens
Hello,
I have a .com site hosted and registered in other hosting. I want to transfer the .com domain (and the site) to InMotion. How are the steps to realize?
Can I add the .com domain into InMotion previously to transfer the domain from the other hosting, upload the files and restore databases and only then transfer the domain?
Hello Pablo,
You can follow the steps above to have InMotion transfer it for you. Otherwise, you would need to transfer the website files, database files, and then point your domain name to use InMotion Hosting’s servers for the transfer. You may also need to flush or remove cached files, update paths in the database, or make changes in configuration files for a move, if you’re going to do it yourself. Doing these transfers will differ from one website to another, so it’s hard to give you specific information without know the application used for your website or how it was built.
I hope this helps to answer your question, please let us know if you require any further assistance.
Regards,
Arnel C.
Intresting article. If you have a cPanel hosting take a complete backup of your Cpanel account and this should be able to move form one host to another host.
I move all my document on my server and I did all what you said …
before i had a few issues cuz I dident give the right consent to the document index.php
cuz I have introduced likewise vqmod , now is good to go up however my page is totally clear .. what i botch ?
Hello Thomas,
Since you said vqmod I am assuming you are using OpenCart. Have you turned on error reporting from within the dashboard to see what errors your website is giving? Can you provide your domain as we may be able to help figure out how to get your website back on track.
Best Regards,
TJ Edens
My current web host is Yahoo Small Business. I have a problem with www.mydomain and mydomain being treated as separate listings and Yahoo Small Business web hosting does not allow ht access files or 301 redirects. Would I be able to use a 301 redirect if I use inmotionhosting? My website was custom created. The site is https://********.com
Thanks
Hello Jeff,
Thank you for your question. Yes, if you sign up for Hosting with InMotion, you can setup a 301 redirect from cPanel, which will add a Rewrite rule to your .htaccess file.
You can also setup a redirect in your .htaccess directly.
If you have any further questions, feel free to post them below.
Thank you,
John-Paul
I am not sure my msg sent.. I am in need of assistance migrating a VERY simple website from GoDaddy hosting to my hosted acct (have had hosting through InMotion for close to 10 years) and I need to know if I can have this done and how much it would cost to have you do it and migrate & set up the email for 2 names on the site. Please Advise
Sonja Lewis
Hello Sonja,
Thank you for contacting us today. You can Request a website transfer from AMP.
Website transfers are considered on a case-by-case basis. They vary depending on the size of your site, complexity of programming, and the platform/OS of your previous host.
This will create a ticket with Live Support, and they will quote any prices before proceeding.
If you have any further questions, feel free to post them below.
Thank you,
John-Paul
Any one have idea easy way I can migrate emails from vdeck (ipower) to new inmotion account?
Regards
-Zoby
Hello Zoby,
Thank you for your question. Please see our guide on Transferring Emails from your old host to InMotion Hosting.
This guide will walk you through the steps.
Thank you,
John-Paul
good article
I am moving my e-commerce website to InMotion Hosting. I know how to set the DNS servers but my under construction page gets replaced with the shopping cart I’m trying to set up. I need to have my under construction page show up until my cart is set up and working properly. How can I do that? I uninstalled the cart so the under construction page shows. I don’t want my customers to see my cart as it’s being built.
Thanks,
Diana
Hello Diana,
In general, if you’re using a common ecommerce program, you can set it to maintenance mode and people visiting the website would see the maintenance mode message. The ecommerce program would still be accessible and you could set your IP so that you would not see the maintenance message.
However, if you’re not using an Ecommerce program that can do this, then you would need to leave your URL set to your old host until you completed the transfer. This would be the recommended way to do this if you want to have your site running while the transfer was being made. Otherwise, you would need to have the site installed to another location within your account, then move it (internally) to the primary location after you have completed the transfer.
You also may want to try using a different index file after modifying your .htaccess file. Check out this article: How to change your default Index page in htaccess. You can set a specific index page order so that if someone calls up your website, the index page with the “under construction” message would appear. You would need to specify your index page in your URL in order to see it normally. For example, if you set your “under construction page” in a file named index.htm, and your normal index page for your ecommerce site was index.php, then in order to see your normal website page, you would type: https://domain_name.com/index.php. You would have to set the order of the index pages in the DirectoryIndex command in your .htaccess file. Checkout the tuturial for further instructions.
I hope this helps to answer your question, please let us know if you require any further assistance.
Kindest regards,
Arnel C.
I recently migrated my domain (therapy4kids.net). Now I want to upload WordPress to that domain so I can run WordPress on it. How woudl I go about doing this? I attempted to install WordPress through the Cpanel, did the install and then went to the wp-admin site and it gave me a 404 Error message. Obviously I messed up somewhere. I’m a pretty big novice with this.
Thnaks
Hello Scott,
Sorry for the problem with the install issue with WordPress. This problem is actually related to your domain name. If you used your domain name for your WordPress installation, then it will not work because your domain is not pointing to our servers. The name servers would need to be updated. If you used a different domain name for the install, please let us know so that we can investigate it further.
Regards,
Arnel C.
One more question if I may?
If you export through wordpress “tools> export and import, what is the difference doing it that way and the FTP way?
There has to be a reason why that transfer is not suggested vs the FTP way.
Hello A,
the actual moving of the files from one server to another does not take too long. Depending on the amount of files and your experience, it can take an hour or more. The propagation time from pointing your domain to the new nameservers can take up to 4-24 hours, however.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
Hello A,
This article is not WordPress specific, but a general guide for most sites. Some, like WordPress may follow either this article or may also have a method more specific to them. For instance, our WordPress guide to migration deals only with WordPress sites.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
How long does this take about though? An hour? Two hours?
Thanks Jeff!!
Very easy to understand the transfer process. It’s been almost ten years since I’ve changed web hosts, so I need the baby steps again. Thank You!
I have designed a website on Webflow but have not published it yet. I am looking at Inmotion because I would like to add Php and MySQL to manage backend member and sales information. I also would like to use Php to create member pages with current links pulled from MySQL database.
1) Can this be done? Which program can I use with cPanel?
2) Can I export my Webflow files (HTML & CSS) into Inmotion account? Which program can I use for further changes and editing to add Php, etc.?
Thanks,
Allen
When exporting with Webflow, they will provide you with your HTML and CSS files. From there, you can simply upload those files via FTP into your public_html directory.
You can indeed handle memberships and payment with PHP, however, if you are not a well experienced PHP developer, I would highly recommend against making your own. There are eCommerce tools such as WooCommerce for WordPress and PrestaShop that would be better suited to handling orders.
I currently have an ecomerce website at Prostores, accepting customer payments through Paypal – I currently have around 600 products listed on the website. What do I neeed to do to transfer to InMotion? I am not computer literate so I will need easy to understand step by step instructions
Hello Paul,
There is not a tutorial for moving data from Prostores to another host. Prostores appears to have been a proprietary platform. While you may be able to export all your products into a file, you will need to pick a new ecommerce platform such as PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, etc to become your new store.
Ecommerce store setup can be tedious and have a learning curve as you will now be maintaining the entire store yourself. Take a look at which platform you may want and start to learn from there. We can always help with questions along the way.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
Hi I am new and need to transfer my site over to in motion. My orig site was built in Joomla – this is all greek to me. Is there someone who can do this for me? How long does it take? As a small biz owner I just don’t have huge chunks of time and don’t want to start and not be able to complete. Please help.
Hello Allison,
If you take a look over our website transfer checklist, you should see that we just need some basic info in order to perform a website transfer for you.
Please submit a ticket with this information in it, and requesting we migrate your site from your old host to us:
You might also want to take a look at our guide on how to perform your own website transfer if you’re in a hurry.
Please let us know if you had any other questions at all!
– Jacob