Migrating a WordPress site is mostly about doing the steps in the right order. Done well, your visitors see zero downtime; done badly, your inbox fills with “site is broken” emails. Here is the sequence we use for client moves to Web Host Bazaar.
1. Pre-flight on the old host. Update WordPress core, themes, and plugins so you migrate the current version. Take a manual database dump from phpMyAdmin and a wp-content zip — even if you use a migration plugin, have a manual fallback.
2. Choose a migration tool. For sites under 500 MB, All-in-One WP Migration is the simplest — export to a single file on the old host, install fresh WordPress on Web Host Bazaar, and import. For larger sites, Duplicator Pro handles big archives more reliably.
3. Stage on a temporary URL. Do not point DNS yet. Use a temporary subdomain like new.yourdomain.com pointed to your Web Host Bazaar account, or edit your local hosts file so only your machine sees the new server. Verify every important page on the new server before any DNS change.
4. Reduce DNS TTL. A day before the planned switch, lower the TTL on your A and AAAA records to 300 seconds. When you flip the records, propagation completes in minutes instead of hours.
5. Final sync, then switch. Take a fresh database export from the old host, restore it on the new one, then update the DNS A records to the Web Host Bazaar IP. Until propagation finishes, both servers will receive traffic — that is fine because both are in sync.
6. Post-migration checks. Confirm SSL is active (AutoSSL takes a few minutes after DNS resolves), flush any object cache, test a checkout / contact form / login, and re-save permalinks under Settings → Permalinks to refresh rules.
7. Leave the old host running for a week. Cancel the old account only after a full week of normal traffic confirms everything still works, including transactional emails.