How long does a website migration take?

Copying and testing a typical small-to-medium site takes a few hours. The part that takes longer is the safety margin afterwards — keeping the old hosting running for about a week while DNS finishes reaching every visitor, which is time passing rather than work being done.

The active part of the work

These figures cover copying files, importing the database, updating configuration, and testing thoroughly on the new server before DNS changes. They assume the migration is following the standard order — copy first, test second, switch DNS last — rather than being rushed or done out of sequence, which is what tends to turn a short job into a long one.

Why the DNS switch adds days, not because anyone is slow

Once you change the domain's DNS records, the new answer does not reach every visitor instantly. Different networks cache DNS for different lengths of time, and a small number hold on longer than they should. Lowering the TTL a day in advance keeps this to a few hours for most visitors — see how DNS propagation actually works — but a small tail of traffic can take up to about 48 hours to fully catch up.

This is why the recommended practice is to keep the old hosting account running for roughly a week after switching, rather than cancelling it the same day. Nothing is broken during that week; it is simply the overlap period where both servers might still be receiving traffic.

What actually extends a migration timeline

• A large database or media library that takes longer to export, transfer and import.
• Missed items discovered late — a mailbox, a cron job, a subdomain — that have to be tracked down and recreated after the fact.
• Testing found a problem, which is a good outcome, not a delay to be frustrated by: it is exactly what testing before the DNS switch is for.
• Multiple websites or subdomains being moved together as part of the same project.

If you would rather not manage the timeline yourself

Website migration is included free with our hosting plans. Send us your current host's details and we will handle the copying, testing and timing, and tell you exactly when it is safe to switch.