Moving a church website without losing rankings or email
Moving a church website means transferring files, database, email and domain settings while preserving every page address that already ranks. The two things that most often go wrong are forgotten email accounts and missing redirects, and both are avoidable with an inventory taken before the move.
What has to be inventoried before a move?
Four things: every page address currently receiving traffic, every email account on the domain, the domain registrar login, and any service pointing at the site such as a giving platform or booking tool.
The email accounts are the item churches forget. A move that transfers the website but not the mailboxes silently loses incoming mail, and the loss is usually noticed days later.
How are rankings preserved?
By keeping page addresses identical wherever possible. Where an address must change, a 301 redirect points the old one at the closest equivalent.
Rankings attach to specific addresses. An address that returns an error after a move loses everything it had accumulated, which is why the redirect list is built before the move rather than after complaints arrive.
Will the site be offline during the move?
It should not be. The site is set up and tested on the new host while the old one keeps serving visitors. Only when the new copy is verified does the domain switch over.
DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to reach everyone, during which some visitors see the old host and some the new. Both must work throughout, which is why the old host is kept running for a few days after the switch.
What if we have lost access to the old host?
This is common, particularly when the site was set up years ago by someone who has since left. The public site can usually be reconstructed from what is visible plus archived copies.
The domain is the part that genuinely matters. If registrar access is lost, recovery goes through the registrar and requires proof of ownership, which takes time. Start that before anything else.
How long does a migration take and what does it cost?
A straightforward site is 1 day of work plus 3 to 5 days of monitoring afterwards. DNS changes take up to 48 hours to reach everyone, so the old host stays running through that window.
Sites with lost credentials take longer, and most of that time is waiting on a registrar rather than working. Domain recovery alone can run 5 to 10 working days.
Migration is quoted after reviewing the existing setup, because the range between a clean move and a reconstruction is too wide for a single figure to be honest.
Frequently asked questions
Can we move without changing our website?
Yes. Moving hosting and redesigning are separate projects, and doing them one at a time makes it far easier to identify the cause if something breaks.
Do we lose our email addresses?
Not if they are inventoried and recreated on the new host before the switch. Losing them is a planning failure rather than a technical necessity.
How long does a move take?
A straightforward site is a day of work plus a few days of monitoring. Sites with unclear history or lost credentials take longer, mostly in waiting rather than working.
Who should own the domain?
The church, registered in the church name with a church email address. Domains registered to individual volunteers are lost when those people move away.
Can you move a site you did not build?
Yes. Most migrations are of sites built by someone else, often with no documentation, and that is normal rather than a complication.
Talk it through first
A short call costs nothing and usually clarifies whether this is the right next step for your organisation.
Get in touch