It’s one of the most typical problems that people who own websites have. At first, your current hosting company worked well, but now you’re dealing with slow site speed, rising costs, poor customer service, or just outgrowing your plan. You can be coming from a platform that is easy to use, like Hostinger or GoDaddy, and now you need something bigger.
Here comes OVHcloud Web Hosting, a well-known firm that offers economical, scalable, and high-performance infrastructure.
But moving your complete online home? It can be like getting ready to move and realizing you have a lot more stuff than you thought you did. This is a full breakdown. At the end of this, you’ll know how to move your website to OVHcloud without going crazy or losing your data, whether you’re a developer, a blogger, or a business owner.
Step 1: Make a list of things to do before you move
Take a deep breath before you start the migrating procedure. It’s not hard to move a website, but it’s worth it to plan ahead. You don’t just get in the car and go while you’re getting ready for a road trip. You get your perfect playlist ready, check the gas, and get some food ready.
Here is your list of things you need to do before you move:
- Back up everything: Yes, everything of it. even if you don’t think you’ll need it.
- Look at the webpage you already have: Figure out what you can leave behind and what you need.
- Please pay attention to the most recent versions: From your CMS (like WordPress or Joomla) to the different versions of PHP or MySQL.
- Take screenshots: This is important when you want to duplicate settings if, like me, you learn best by seeing things.
- Let the right people know: If your website gets a lot of visitors or business, plan maintenance announcements or times when traffic is low.
- What you bring with you when you move is just as important as what you leave behind. It’s time to clean up your website if it has old plugins, broken links, or media files that you don’t use anymore.
Step 2: Choose the Best OVHcloud Hosting Plan
Every hosting plan is different.OVHcloud Hosting plans has a lot of different plans to choose from. For example, they have VPS and dedicated servers for projects that need a lot of resources, as well as shared hosting for tiny websites. So, how do you choose?
This is a simple guide:
- Would you like a personal blog or a portfolio website? You can choose between two levels of OVHcloud’s Web Hosting plans: “Personal” and “Pro.”
- Do you own a small business or a WooCommerce store? Look over the performance plan.
- Desire greater authority or the flexibility to develop? You may get root access and fully customize your server with OVHcloud’s VPS or Cloud Web Hosting services.
- One of the best things about choosing OVHcloud for hosting is that all of the details, including RAM, storage, and bandwidth, are clear. It’s not required to figure out what vague marketing words like “unlimited” mean, because they usually don’t.
Step 3: Set up the environment for OVHcloud hosting
After you pick a plan and sign up, you need to get your hosting space ready, just like you would for a friend who is coming to stay.
You should:
- Open your OVHcloud Control Panel and sign in.
- Create your own domain.
- You can either install your CMS (like WordPress) by hand or use the OVHcloud one-click installer.
- Set up your file structure, especially if you’re moving a website that isn’t a CMS.
- Compared to services like GoDaddy that are easier to use, OVHcloud’s interface could seem a little hard to utilize. But once you get the feel of it, it’s great to have that much freedom and customization. You don’t have to stay in a “caged” area.
Step 4: Move Files and Databases for Websites
Yes, the actual movement of loading and unloading boxes is the digital form. Depending on how your website is set up, there are a few different ways to do this:
If your CMS is like WordPress:
- Plugins like Duplicator or All-in-One WP Migration make it easy to export and import everything with just a few clicks.
- You can also use phpMyAdmin to import your database and FTP (with FileZilla) to move files around by hand.
- For specialized setups or websites that don’t change
You can use FTP to send your HTML, CSS, and JS files to the OVHcloud server.
Manually import your MySQL databases.
To be honest, this part can be scary. I once had a client who neglected to move the /uploads folder, and because of that, they lost all of their media files. Check the paths and structures of your files and folders three times. Use your staging area if you have one.
Step 5: Change the DNS records so that traffic goes to the right place
If your domain name still points to your old server, visitors won’t see the changes even if your files are in their new location. If you want your items to get to the appropriate place, you need to do this, just as when you alter your address on Amazon.
In the control panel of your domain registrar (which might still be GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.):
Change the A Record to point to your new OVHcloud IP address.
If you are utilizing OVHcloud’s own nameservers, make sure to change them.
DNS propagation usually starts considerably earlier, but it can take as long as 24 or 48 hours. You shouldn’t make any big changes to the site right now because they might not sync up properly.
Step 6: Set up SSL and security settings
Having an unsecured website in 2025 is like leaving your flat door open at night. You wouldn’t do that, would you?
Most of OVHcloud’s plans come with free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates. You can turn it on in the Control Panel, where your domain settings are. Also:
Websites that need HTTPS.
- Change the CMS settings to make HTTPS the default.
- Check the permissions on the files and directories. For files, 644 is a good number, and for directories, 755 is a good number.
- Install a web firewall or turn on OVHcloud’s DDoS protection, which comes with some plans by default, to get more points.
Step 7: Email and Other Services
There is more than just your website on your hosting account. It’s time to migrate your email too if you were utilizing your old host for it. OVHcloud is a professional email hosting service that lets you use your own name and protects you from spam.
Do these things:
- You can make new email accounts on the OVHcloud interface.
- Set up the MX records for your domain.
- If you use IMAP, you can back up your old emails with apps like Thunderbird or MailStore.
This is one of those “easy to forget” steps that could cause a lot of difficulties if you don’t do them, especially if you own a business and your clients are expecting quick answers.
Step 8: Test everything and keep going
Now that everything is working, it’s time to play detective. Check that all of the following are working correctly: links, forms, images, scripts, and analytics.
Use GTmetrix or Pingdom to check speed and performance.
- Click “Down for Everyone or Just Me?” to see if the site is online.
- Use SSL Checker to make sure the certificate was installed correctly.
Also, do a “final sweep” when there aren’t many people around. I constantly tell my clients to look at their website as if they were seeing it for the first time. An administrator who only looks at the backend may overlook a 404 or broken plugin faster than someone who has never seen it before.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Like a Pro
Not making backups. Even experts make blunders. Don’t let yourself become one of them.
MySQL and PHP versions don’t work together. Make sure it works with your CMS and plugins.
- There is a problem with the DNS settings. One wrong IP address could have you confused for hours.
- not paying attention to email migrations. Even when your website is up and running, you don’t have any client questions? Not very excellent.
- not remembering to turn off maintenance mode. You think it’s funny now, but it occurs.
- If you take your time and double-check, you can avoid mistakes during a migration.
In Conclusion
Moving your website from an all-in-one provider like Hostinger or GoDaddy to OVHcloud may seem like a lot of work at first. The good news is that once the process is over, you will love the freedom, speed, and control that OVHcloud gives you. No more big dashboards or ambiguous claims of “unlimited.” Hosting that is easy to use and dependable, with a strong infrastructure base.
