DNS and nameserver changes during a migration

The short answer

Before you move a website, copy down every DNS record the domain has, lower the TTL to 300 seconds at least a day before the move, and keep the old host running until the new one is clearly serving the site. If only the website is moving and your email stays where it is, change the A record rather than the nameservers.

If you are migrating to WP Alpha, you do not need to do any of this yourself. We handle the DNS as part of the free migration.

What it means

DNS (the Domain Name System) is the internet’s address book. When someone types your domain, their device asks DNS “where does this site live” and gets back an IP address, the numeric address of a server. A migration moves your site to a new server with a new address, so the address book has to be updated.

There are two ways to do that. You can edit individual records at your current DNS provider, usually just the A record (the one that points the bare domain and www at a server). Or you can change the domain’s nameservers, the servers that answer the question “where does this domain live”, so that the whole zone is answered by the new host.

The first option is surgical and keeps everything else (email, verification records) exactly as it is. The second is a full handover: the new host’s nameservers start with a blank zone, so any record you did not recreate there simply stops existing. That is how email breaks during migrations.

One more term: TTL (time to live) is how long, in seconds, other servers are allowed to remember an answer. A high TTL means an old address can be cached for hours after you change it. A low TTL means the change spreads quickly.

Common causes

• Nameservers changed without copying the records first. MX (mail), SPF, DKIM and DMARC (the records that let your email be delivered and trusted) and any verification TXT records for Google, Microsoft or other services vanish when a new zone starts empty.
• TTL left high. If the TTL was 86400 seconds (a day) when you changed the record, some visitors keep reaching the old server for up to a day.
• Old host switched off too early. Visitors still being sent to the old address see an error instead of the site.
• DNS changed before the new copy is finished. Orders, form submissions and comments made on the old site after the copy was taken are lost.
• Proxied records. If Cloudflare or a similar service sits in front of the domain, the record you need to edit is inside that dashboard, not at the registrar.

How to fix it

1. Find where DNS is actually managed. Look up the domain’s nameservers (any public WHOIS or DNS lookup tool shows them). The company those nameservers belong to is where you edit records. It may be the registrar, the old host or Cloudflare.
2. Export or screenshot every record. In cPanel that is Zone Editor; in Plesk it is Websites & Domains, then DNS Settings. Capture A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT and SRV records. Pay special attention to MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and any verification TXT records.
3. Lower the TTL to 300 seconds at least a day before the move. Edit the A record (and the www record) and set the TTL to 300. Wait at least as long as the old TTL before changing the address, so every cache has picked up the shorter value.
4. Get the site working on the new server first. Your new host will give you a temporary address or a hosts-file method to test. Confirm pages, images, checkout and forms all work before touching DNS.
5. Choose your method. If only the website is moving, change the A record to the new server’s IP and leave the nameservers alone. If you are switching nameservers, first recreate every record from step 2 in the new host’s DNS Settings, then change the nameservers at the registrar under Domains.
6. Keep the old host live for at least a few days. Do not cancel until a DNS lookup tool shows the domain resolving to the new address from several locations.
7. Check email the same day. Send a test message in and out. If mail stops, the MX or SPF records were missed in step 5.
8. Update WordPress only if the domain itself changed. Under Settings > General check WordPress Address and Site Address. For a straight server move these stay the same.

On WP Alpha

We handle DNS as part of the free concierge migration, and 99 of 100 migrations have no downtime window. Our team copies the existing records, builds the site on our servers, tests it, and makes the switch at a time that suits you, keeping your email records intact.

Every site on WP Alpha sits behind Cloudflare. VERIFY: whether customers manage DNS records in Cloudflare or in the management console (Plesk with WP Toolkit) after migration If anything looks wrong after a cutover, support is available 24/7 on live chat, with an urgent escalation form for anything that affects a live site.