Moving your WordPress site to Noiz
A WordPress site is two things: its files (WordPress itself, your theme, your plugins and your uploads) and its database (every post, page, setting and order). Moving it means copying both to the new server, pointing WordPress at its new database, and testing the copy before the domain is switched over. If the web address stays the same, that is most of the work. If the address changes, the URLs inside the database must be changed with a tool that understands how WordPress stores data, never with a plain find-and-replace. Premium's WP Toolkit can import one from another host.
What moves, and what does not
| Part | What it holds | How it moves |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress files | Core files, themes, plugins, uploads and anything else in the web folder | Copied over SSH or FTP, or by an import tool |
| The database | Posts, pages, settings, users, comments, orders | Exported from the old host and imported at Noiz |
| wp-config.php | The database name, user and password | Updated with the new database details |
| Your mailboxes | Not part of WordPress: mailboxes are created at Noiz and their messages copied over IMAP | |
| DNS | Where your domain points | Switched once the new copy is tested |
WordPress's own guide to moving starts with the same advice we give: back up everything first, the files and the database.
If your web address stays the same
When the domain does not change, moving WordPress is mostly copying. The files go to the new web folder, the database is imported into a new database, and wp-config.php is edited so WordPress can reach it with the new database name, user and password. Nothing inside the database needs to change.
If your web address changes
WordPress stores its own address in the database, and themes and widgets often store full URLs too. Some of them store data in a serialised form that records the length of each value. Change a URL with a plain find-and-replace in the database, and those lengths no longer match. WordPress's guide warns that things then break.
Use a tool that handles serialised data:
- WP-CLI's search-replace command understands serialised data and has a dry-run mode that reports what it would change without saving anything.
- A search-and-replace plugin that is serialisation-aware, run from the WordPress dashboard.
- On Premium, WP Toolkit's Update Site URL action changes the address of a migrated site.
Leave the GUID column alone. WordPress's guide is emphatic: feed readers use it to recognise posts, and it must never be changed.
Our help centre has a guide to bulk find and replace in WordPress.
Tools that do the copying for you
- WP Toolkit import, on Premium. WP Toolkit can migrate a WordPress site you own from another host, copying its files and database, as at October 2026.
- By hand, with an export of the database, a copy of the files and an import at Noiz. Our help centre's guide to migrating a WordPress site to Noiz hosting walks through it.
A move without downtime
- Lower the DNS time to live on your domain's records ahead of the move. The TTL is how long resolvers may keep an answer, so lower it at least one old TTL before you switch.
- Copy the site to Noiz with one of the tools above.
- Test the new copy from your own computer by adding the Noiz server's address for your domain to your computer's hosts file. Plesk's own migration guide recommends this over panel previews. Sign in, open the main pages, send a form, and check the images.
- Pause changes on the old site, such as new orders, comments or posts, for the switch.
- Copy the database across once more, so the Noiz copy has the latest content. This overwrites changes made on the new copy, so finish your testing first.
- Switch DNS to Noiz, and keep the old hosting for a few days until all traffic and mail have moved.
For a shop, plan the switch for a quiet hour. Orders placed on the old site after the final sync would otherwise need copying across by hand.
After the move
- Check the certificate. Let's Encrypt issues it once the domain reaches Noiz.
- Check the PHP version. On Premium you choose it for each site; use one your plugins support.
- Check scheduled tasks and email sending. Contact forms and order emails should arrive.
- Take a fresh backup of the new site once it is settled.
Help with the move, and looking after it afterwards
If you would like help with a move, open a ticket with the details of your current hosting. Once the site is here, WordPress Care can keep it updated every week with a restore point first. Choose your plan on the shared hosting page, or open a ticket to start.
Sources
Checked 19 October 2026. Menu names and tools are as at October 2026.
WordPress
Plesk
- Plesk Obsidian: WP Toolkit
- Plesk: migration and transfer guide
- Plesk: opening a site before DNS points to it
Standards
- RFC 1035: domain names (TTL)
- RFC 2181: clarifications to the DNS specification (TTL as a maximum)
Noiz
- How to Migrate a WordPress Site to Noiz Hosting (Noiz help centre)
- Shared hosting
- WordPress Care
Note: while some of this content was produced with the help of AI, the final editing has been done by a real human being.
