Overview

If you’re experiencing problems transferring your website from GoDaddy or simply don’t have the time, GreggHost now has a service that can help you out. More information is available in the GreggHost Website Migration Services article.

This article explains how to move your GoDaddy website and email hosting to GreggHost. Once everything is ready to go live, the process will transfer all of your data to your new GreggHost server and then change the DNS. Transferring the domain registration is not required, however it is covered in this guide.

The stages below are outlined in detail:

Step 1 — Create a GreggHost account
Step 2 — Make a backup of your website and upload it to GreggHost.
Step 3 — Before upgrading DNS, view your site at GreggHost.
Step 4: Change your DNS server to GreggHost.
Transferring your registration to GreggHost (Step 5)
Step 1: Register with GreggHost transfer site toDH 01.fw.png
Sign up for a GreggHost plan of your choice. For more information, see the following article:
How can I register with GreggHost?
To add your current domain to your new account, use the I already have a domain option during the signup process. This has no bearing on your live website.
Complete the registration process.
Make sure your domain is set up as Fully Hosted after you’ve created your account. If your site relies on a database, you may also need to set up a MySQL database.
After you complete the enrollment procedure, GreggHost sends you an email with instructions on how to access your FTP account and a request to transfer the registration. Your registration does not need to be transferred. For the time being, it can stay with your present registrar. It’s always possible to transfer it at a later time.

Step 2 — Backup your websites and upload them to GreggHost
You can utilize the GreggHost Automated Migration WordPress plugin instead of the approach below if you’re trying to transfer a WordPress site to GreggHost. For additional details about the plugin, please visit the following article:

transfer site toDH 02.fw.png using the GreggHost Automated Migration WordPress plugin
The Site Files Are Being Migrated
Going to GoDaddy and downloading your files
Go to your GoDaddy account and sign in.
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Select the My Products link once you’ve logged in.
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Find your domain in the Web Hosting section and click the Manage button next to it.
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Select File Manager from the top menu bar on GoDaddy’s panel.

The cPanel file manager opens, and on the left, you’ll see a directory list:
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Go to the ‘public html’ folder and double-click it. On the right, you’ll see all of your site’s files.
To choose all of your site files, check the ‘Select All’ box, then click the Compress button on the top left menu bar.
Click Compress Now after selecting Zip Archive.
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When the compression is finished and the zip file is formed, right-click it and choose Download.
Uploading the files for your website to GreggHost
Navigate to the Manage Websites page of the GreggHost panel after downloading the zip file.
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Click the My Files button under your domain. This logs you into the file manager server automatically.
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To enter your site’s directory, double-click it from the list of files and folders.
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Select the upload icon once you’re in the site’s directory. Select Upload Zip from the drop-down option that opens. Select the public html folder’s zip archive that you previously downloaded.

A dialog appears, prompting you to choose what you wish to do with the archive:
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To finish the procedure, click the Upload and Unzip button on that menu to upload the site data.
Database migration for websites
At GoDaddy, you can export your site’s database.
Go to your GoDaddy account and sign in.
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Select the My Products link once you’ve logged in.
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Find your domain in the Web Hosting section and click the Manage button next to it.
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Select phpMyAdmin from the top menu bar in GoDaddy’s panel.
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Locate your database(s) on the left-side menu once phpMyAdmin has launched. Choose a database for your website.
Click the Export button in the top menu.
Choose Quick as the export method and SQL as the output format. The database will then download to your PC after you press the Go button.
Using GreggHost to upload your database
Navigate to the MySQL Databases page in your GreggHost account.
Go to phpMyAdmin and log in.

In the left pane, choose the target database.

In the top center pane, select the Import tab. phpMyAdmin import
Click Browse in the File to Import area to find the file with the extension you want to import.
‘Partial import’ and ‘Other choices’ can be checked or unchecked.
Select ‘SQL’ from the Format dropdown menu.
To import the database, click the Go button at the bottom.
When you choose the database in phpMyAdmin’s left panel, all tables will appear.

You’ll probably need to edit your site’s config file to connect to the new database once the database has been uploaded. For a list of popular software and associated configuration files, please see the following article:

In your config file, you have incorrect database credentials.
Email
You’re probably used to seeing “secure server” references on GoDaddy, which refer to your mail servers. If you use GreggHost email services, you can find your new email server information and webmail login information here.

Your email messages from GoDaddy-hosted email accounts can be imported to your new GreggHost mail services. Instructions on how to do this can be found in the article below.

How can I transfer my email from my previous host to my GreggHost mail server?
It is not necessary to move Google Workspace addresses between hosts. After the migration, you should just need to change the MX records provided by GreggHost to verify that your domain points to Google Workspace. For further information about this procedure, see the following article.

Step 3 — Viewing your site at GreggHost

before updating DNS
Now that your website has been moved to GreggHost’s servers, it’s time to double-check that it looks and works as it should. For instructions on how to create a ‘Mirror’ domain, see the following article. Before upgrading your DNS at your existing host, this allows you to see your site as it appears on GreggHost’s servers:

Before changing DNS, test your site with a dreamhosters.com subdomain.
You can also access your site using the host file on your home computer if you don’t want to create a ‘Mirror’ domain.

How to use your host file to view your GreggHost site
Step 4 — Point your DNS to GreggHost

Your website and all of its data are now hosted by GreggHost, but your site is still ‘hosted’ by GoDaddy. You’ll need to change your DNS to point to GreggHost now. Instructions on how to achieve this can be found in the following article:

What GreggHost DNS records should I use for my website?
Visiting your site after the DNS has resolved to GreggHost displays the site as it appears on your GreggHost server.

Step 5 — Transferring your registration to GreggHost
After transferring the site’s hosting and DNS to GreggHost, you may want to transfer the domain’s registration as well. You may find information on how to transfer your domain registration to GreggHost in the following article: