Moving a website to a new designer or host is mostly a domain and email job, not a design job. Find out who controls the domain, get the login or transfer code, build the new site in full before touching anything, then switch the DNS while carrying the email records across exactly, redirect the old page addresses, and only then cancel the old provider. Done in that order, customers notice nothing. Done in the wrong order, the old site vanishes before the new one is ready and the email stops for a week.
Start with the domain, not the site
The domain is the one thing that cannot be rebuilt. Before you look at designs, look up who holds it: for a .ie, use the WHOIS lookup on the registry’s site at weare.ie; for anything else, any WHOIS tool will do. You are looking for the registrant (the legal holder), the registrar (the company it was bought through), the nameservers (who runs the DNS) and the renewal date, since you should not move a domain in the week it is due to renew.
There are three possible answers. The registrant is you or your business: good, carry on. It is your old designer or their company: stop and get it changed before anything else, because whoever holds the domain holds your email and the web address on your Google listing. It is hidden behind a privacy service: log in to the registrar account, or ask the registrar who the account holder is.
If a designer registered your .ie in their own name, ask them in writing to transfer the registrant to your business. As we understand it the registry has a change of registrant process and will want proof of your connection to the name, such as a CRO number or a registered business name certificate. Most designers will do it without fuss. If they refuse or have vanished, contact the registry and explain. The proof side is covered in how to register a .ie domain.
Get the keys
Moving a site needs more logins than people expect. Collect them before you give anyone notice.
| Login | What it controls | Who usually has it |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registrar | The domain itself, renewals, transfers | You, or your old designer |
| DNS | Where the site and email point | Registrar, host or a service such as Cloudflare |
| Hosting | The files and database of the old site | Old designer or host |
| Website admin | The content, if it is WordPress or a builder | You or the designer |
| Business Profile, Search Console, Analytics | Should be you; often the designer |
If the domain is staying at the same registrar, you need the account login. If it is moving to a new registrar, you need an authorisation code from the current one, and as we understand it that applies to .ie domains as well as .com.
Make sure your own Google account is an owner of the Business Profile and of Search Console, not just a manager. A designer who leaves holding your Business Profile is a bigger problem than one who leaves with the site.
Export everything before you give notice
Copy the text of every page into a document. Download the original photos, not the compressed versions on the site; ask the photographer or dig them out of your phone. Save the list of page addresses from yourdomain.ie/sitemap.xml or from Search Console, because you will need it for redirects. Keep menus, price lists, PDFs, and any reviews you have permission to use.
What comes with you depends on how the old site was built. A WordPress site can be exported in full and restored by a new host. Builders are different: as we understand it, Wix does not export a working site at all, and Squarespace exports some content but not the design or the shop, so plan on the text and photos coming with you and the rest being rebuilt. If you are still deciding whether to leave a builder, Wix vs Squarespace vs hiring someone sets out the trade-offs.
Build the new site first
Nothing gets switched off yet. The new site is built on a temporary address, and you test it on your phone on mobile data: every page, every button, the enquiry form actually arriving, the booking link working, the map opening. Have whoever answers your phone try it too, because they know what customers ask.
Both sites exist at once while this happens; pointing the domain at the new one is a five minute job at the end, not the start.
Email is where moves go wrong
Email for your domain is routed by DNS records called MX records, and the mailboxes themselves live somewhere: with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your registrar, or, very often with older Irish sites, on the same hosting package as the website. That last case is the dangerous one: cancel the hosting and the mailboxes go with it, archive included.
Find out where your mail lives before anything else is touched. If it is on the old hosting, move the mailboxes first, to Google, Microsoft or your registrar, and copy the old messages across. Either way, before you change a single DNS record, export or screenshot the entire zone: every A, CNAME, MX and TXT record, including the SPF, DKIM and DMARC entries that keep your mail out of spam. Our guide to business email on your own domain explains each record in a line.
Lower the TTL, then switch
Every DNS record has a time to live, which is how long the rest of the internet may remember the old answer. If it is set to a day, some visitors keep seeing the old site for a day after you switch. Lower it to five minutes a day or two before the move, so the switch takes effect quickly and can be undone just as quickly if something is wrong.
There are two ways to switch. Change the A or CNAME record for the site and leave everything else alone, which is the safer option. Or change the nameservers to the new provider, which moves all of DNS, in which case every record from your export must be recreated at the new place first, or email breaks. Check the new host has issued the SSL certificate so the padlock appears from the first minute.
Pick a quiet mid week morning, not a Friday or the day before a bank holiday weekend, so help desks are open if something goes wrong. Test from your phone on mobile data; office wifi can hold on to the old answer for a while.
Redirects and the Google side
If the new site uses different page addresses, redirect each old one to its new equivalent with a permanent redirect, starting with the pages Search Console shows people actually visit. Better still, keep the addresses the same. Then update the website link on your Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, Golden Pages, your email signature and any ads, and watch Search Console for a few weeks for pages it cannot find.
Cancel the old provider last
Give it a week or two with the new site live and email confirmed working, take a final backup, then cancel. Read the cancellation carefully: with some providers the domain renewal is bundled into the hosting plan, and cancelling one lapses the other. The domain stays with a registrar in your name, with auto-renew on and two-factor login, whatever happens to the hosting.
The traps, in one place:
| Trap | What happens | Avoid it by |
|---|---|---|
| Designer owns the domain | Site and email can be held over you, or lapse | Check WHOIS first; fix the registrant before anything else |
| Builder site cannot be exported | Years of content stuck inside Wix or Squarespace | Copy text and photos out before cancelling |
| Email on the old hosting | Mailboxes and archive vanish with the hosting | Move mail first; export the DNS zone |
| Old host cancelled too early | Site and email go dark before DNS has moved | Cancel last, a week or two after going live |
| Addresses changed, no redirects | Old links hit error pages | Keep addresses or redirect each one |
| Domain renewal bundled with hosting | Domain lapses with the hosting | Keep the domain in your own registrar account |
What we do for clients
When a business with an existing site comes to us, the WHOIS check is the first thing we do, before we talk about what the new site should look like. If the domain is not in the client’s name, getting it there is step one, and we will not build on a domain the client does not hold. The new site is built from our templates and tested on a temporary address while the old one keeps running; most are ready within a few days of our first chat.
We handle the DNS move, carry every email record across so existing mail keeps working, set up the redirects, and update the Google Business Profile, which is set up and verified as part of Essentials. On Complete we also set up business email on the domain and move the old mailboxes over.
Leaving us works the same way in reverse, which is the fairest test of any provider. No contract, 30 days’ notice, no exit fee, the domain in your name from the start, and the content and booking history handed over. The details are on the pricing page.
Move your website to a new provider: the steps
- Find out who controls the domain. Look the domain up in the .IE registry's WHOIS or any WHOIS tool. Note the registrant, the registrar and the renewal date. If the registrant is not you, fix that first.
- Get the keys. Get the login for the registrar account, or an authorisation code to transfer the domain, plus access to wherever the DNS is managed.
- Export everything. Copy the text of every page, download the original photos, and save the list of page addresses from the old sitemap.
- Build the new site first. Have the new site finished and tested on a temporary address before anything is switched off.
- Sort email before you touch DNS. Find out where your mailboxes live. If they are on the old hosting, move them first, and export the full DNS zone so the MX records can be carried over exactly.
- Lower the TTL, then switch DNS. A day or two before, lower the time to live on the records. Then point the domain at the new site and check it from your phone on mobile data.
- Redirect and update. Redirect each old page address to its new equivalent, update the website link on your Google Business Profile and social accounts, and watch Search Console.
- Cancel the old provider last. Only when the new site has been live for a week or two and email is confirmed working. Check that cancelling does not drop the domain.