This article provides additional important information to what DreamHost already sent you in response to your request to have the Professional Services Team perform a WP migration request.

How many sites can I migrate?

You can migrate as many sites as you wish, but they are individually priced.

Private site viewing

Your current site will not go down during the migration. DreamHost provides a private way to view the migrated site(s) until you have approved the migration and are ready to point your Nameservers from your current host to DreamHost. It's extremely important that you do not change your Domain Name System (DNS) settings to route traffic to DreamHost until after the migration is complete and you have approved it in writing.

Turnaround time

Priority WordPress Migrations

Starting from the verification of the site's login credentials, it should take at most 48 hours to complete these types of migrations. The time begins from the day the login credentials at your current host are verified.

This verification is two-fold, where DreamHost checks that:

1. The team has the complete login types needed, and
2. DreamHost is able to log in with those credentials.

Upon verifying your credentials, DreamHost will send you a confirmation email stating that the migration has started.

Can I continue to post to my website?

No. Please do not make any changes to your site after you submit your request to be migrated. When the migration is completed, DreamHost will notify you. Only after changing your DNS to point to DreamHost and receiving the email from support should you begin to update your site again.

Email

The migration service only covers the contents of the site. Any emails you want to keep must be handled separately by you. DO NOT change your email DNS to route emails to DreamHost servers (if that is even your preference) until the migration is complete and approved in writing. For additional information, please visit the following article:

• Backup email to your computer

Disk usage

The storage on the DreamHost web servers is designed specifically for hosting websites. It is not efficient as a backup or other storage solution. With this in mind, please ensure that the data DreamHost migrates over for you meets those requirements. If any large backups exist in your site, please notify DreamHost.

DreamHost filters out some backup files when it can identify them as the transfer programs run, but it may not exclude all of them. It is recommended that you move any backup files to the folder above the directory where WordPress is installed in the folder structure. You must do this at your current host. If this is done first, DreamHost can easily exclude them. DreamHost offers storage solutions as well and is happy to help you set that up and get you going. In fact, the DreamPress hosting service includes plugins that allow you to use DreamHost's efficient object storage to backup your WordPress website.

For additional information, please visit the following article:

• DreamHost cloud storage

HTTPS/SSL

If you have HTTPS enabled on your site, DreamHost can only guarantee getting the HTTP option running. Once you're set up, DreamHost can then guide you through enabling HTTPS for your domain.

Mobile site

DreamHost is only able to guarantee the migration of the desktop version of your site. However, the mobile version usually continues to run fine anyway. If it doesn't, please let DreamHost know. The team is more than happy to offer some limited troubleshooting to get the mobile site running as well.

Migration requirements

• DreamHost strongly prefers that the site is live and stay that way at the current host until the completed migration is completed by DreamHost and approved by you. DreamHost needs the old site to compare to the migrated one for sign-off. If your site isn't kept live, DreamHost is unable to know if it's migrating errors that already exist.
• If it's a version older than WordPress 3.7, it must be upgraded to at least that version at your old host. This is to ensure critical security issues are handled first.
• If it's migrating to DreamPress, you must ensure you are using the latest WordPress version before the migration.
• If you suspect your current site is hacked, it must be cleaned up at the current host. If DreamHost installs/imports a migrated site and then finds hacked files, DreamHost may decide to stop the migration and notify you.
• DreamHost migrates the site and ensures HTTP access works, but HTTPS is not necessarily within scope for the Professional Services Team. HTTPS can usually be handled afterwards by general Tech Support.
• At this time, WordPress Multi-Site migrations are not supported.

Once DreamHost has your information and verifies the login credentials work, the team is able to get started and periodically update you on progress, or request various things along the way if necessary.

Failsafe

There is always the potential for unforeseen issues in this type of process. If you run in to a hard deadline that is unattainable by the Professional Services Team, DreamHost can stand aside and let you take control of the migration (or postpone everything until there’s a better time to execute it).