How to Move Your Website to a New Web Designer

Why people switch, and why it can feel hard

The usual reasons are familiar: your developer disappeared, replies take weeks, every small change costs a fortune, or the site has fallen behind. Switching feels risky because you may not know where the site is hosted or who holds the domain. The good news is that most handovers are straightforward once you have the right access. Do it calmly, in order, and keep things polite with the old provider.

Before you tell your current designer you are leaving, quietly check what you can already access. Log in to your registrar, hosting and Google accounts if you have the details, and note what is in your name. Then ask for anything missing in one clear, written request, with a reasonable deadline. Most designers hand over without fuss when asked professionally.

The checklist: what to collect

1. Domain registrar login, and confirmation that your business is the registrant. See domain names explained.
2. DNS access, if DNS is managed somewhere other than the registrar.
3. Hosting control panel login, or SFTP and database access.
4. Website admin login with full administrator rights (WordPress, Shopify staff account with full permissions, and so on).
5. A full backup: files and database, or an export from your platform.
6. Google accounts: owner access to Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager and Business Profile.
7. Third-party services: email provider, payment gateway, booking system, form tools, premium plugin licences.
8. Your contract, to check for notice periods, handover fees and who owns the copyright. See do I own my website?

If the old designer will not respond

• Domain. If you are the registrant, your registrar can help you recover the account. For .uk domains, registrant issues go through Nominet.
• Hosting. If the hosting account is in your name, the host can reset access. If it is in the designer's name, you may need to rebuild the site, using an archived copy or the live pages as a guide.
• Google accounts. Google has recovery processes for Business Profile and Search Console ownership; Search Console can be re-verified by adding a DNS record if you control the domain.
• Content. Text and images visible on the live site can be saved as a fallback before anything goes offline.

How the move itself works

1. The new designer copies the site to new hosting, or takes over the existing account.
2. They test it on a temporary address: pages, forms, checkout, redirects.
3. DNS records are lowered in TTL ahead of the switch, then updated to point at the new server.
4. Email records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are copied exactly so email keeps flowing.
5. The old hosting is kept for a short time until everything is confirmed working, then cancelled.

Done this way, visitors rarely notice. If the move is part of a redesign, see redesign or start again.

What to expect from your new designer

A good new designer will start with an audit: what platform the site runs on, which versions and plugins are installed, whether backups exist, how the domain and email are set up, and whether anything is already broken. They should tell you plainly what they found and what they recommend, whether that is taking the site over as it is, fixing problems first, or rebuilding.

Make sure the new arrangement fixes what went wrong last time. Get the domain, hosting and Google accounts in your business's name, with your new designer added as a user. Ask for a short written note of where everything is held. And agree how changes will be charged, so you are not surprised. At dijitul small changes are £45 an hour + VAT, and the client owns the website and the domain.

When to call us

We take over websites built by other designers, recover access where we can, and move sites safely at £45 an hour + VAT. If the old site is not worth keeping, we rebuild from £250 + VAT, and this time you own everything. Get in touch or call 01623 650333.

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