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If you have a hosting account somewhere else, but you want to move it to us (thank you!), we have all of the information you'll need in this article. However, there are some complexities it doesn't handle.
| This guide is great if you... | Do not use this guide if you... |
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If this all sounds agreeable to you, let's get started.
Set up Your Account
After you purchase an account, you've got to set it up so we know which domain you plan on using. We have that information in Set up your account.
If you're moving your website between hosting accounts within our system, you might need to remove the domain from an existing account or change your old account's primary domain name.
Downloading Your Website
If you have a copy of your website's files, you can skip this step.
If you don't, you'll need to download a copy of the files from your current hosting company. Because there are so many potential places you could be hosting, there's no way we can document their procedures. However, we can say that we recommend using an FTP client and provide you documentation about using it (albeit with our system) in Backup your website with FTP and FileZilla.
Uploading Your Website
Once you have the files, you need to move them from your local computer to your hosting account (i.e. our servers, which are accessible over the Internet). To do this, we recommend using an FTP client, though there are some other options available to you. For that information, check out FTP: How to upload files.
Previewing Your Website
After you've gotten the content on your hosting account, you'll want to preview it to make sure it looks good. For that information, see Preview your website.
Making Your Website Hosted with Us Live
If everything looks good, you can officially make the switch from your old host to us by changing your DNS, which controls which hosting account/server your domain name loads (more info). This process pretty simple, but there are two ways to do it, which have different impacts on your website — namely its email.
Before proceeding, ask you yourself, "Do I care what happens to my current email configuration?"
| Yes | To maintain your current email configuration, you'll need to change only your domain name's primary IP address/A record. You can find the IP address using these instructions. Once you have that, you'll need to change it with the company where your domain name is registered. If that's through us, you can use our DNS manager (Manage DNS ). |
| No | If you don't care what happens to your current email configuration, you can just change your nameservers (which will change all of your DNS settings). We have all of those instructions in Change nameservers for my domains. |
Either of these changes can take up to 48 hours to display Internet-wide. Once they do — that's it! You're done transferring your hosting account.