Most migrations that go wrong go wrong in the same way: someone changes the DNS first, and then spends the next day moving files while visitors land on an empty server.
Do it in this order instead and nobody notices you moved.
Before you touch anything: take your own backup
Download a full copy of your files and export your database, and keep it somewhere that is not either host. Not because a migration usually breaks something, but because the one time it does, you want the version from before.
We should say plainly that we keep no offsite copy of your data and do not promise to restore anything — it is in our terms and in the hosting FAQ. Your backup is your backup.
Step 1 — lower the DNS TTL, a day ahead
The TTL is how long the rest of the internet is allowed to remember your old address. If it is set to 24 hours, some visitors will keep going to the old server for a full day after you switch.
Set it to 300 seconds a day before you migrate. Then the switch takes five minutes to spread instead of a day. Put it back to an hour or so afterwards.
Step 2 — move the files
Download your site from the old host over FTP, SFTP or its file manager, then upload it here through cPanel's File Manager or over FTP. If the site is large, a compressed archive uploaded and extracted on the server is far faster than thousands of individual files.
Minimal holds one site and Cpanel2 holds three. If you need more than that, write to us and we will set it up.
Step 3 — move the database
Export from the old host with phpMyAdmin or mysqldump, create an empty database here in cPanel, and import. Then update your application's configuration with the new database name, user and password — this is the step people forget, and it produces a site that loads a blank page with no error.
Step 4 — move the email
If your mail is at the old host, create the mailboxes here first and copy the messages across with your mail client or an IMAP sync tool, BEFORE changing the MX record. Mail that arrives during the switch goes to whichever server the sender's DNS points at, so having both ready means nothing is lost.
Step 5 — test before anyone else sees it
You can visit the new server with your domain name before the domain points here at all: add a line to your computer's hosts file mapping the domain to the new IP address. Your browser then loads the new server while the rest of the world still gets the old one.
Click through the site properly. Log in. Submit a form. Check the pages that use the database, not just the front page.
Step 6 — change the DNS, last
Only now change the A record — and the MX, if the mail moved too — to point here. With a 300-second TTL the change spreads in minutes.
Leave the old hosting running for a few more days. It costs one more month at most, and it means a mistake is a rollback rather than an outage.
What we can do for you
Write to us and we will help you move it. Support answers in Georgian, Russian or English, from Tbilisi. If you tell us what the site runs on and roughly how large it is before you start, we can tell you which parts will be awkward.