Among the many important functions of a reseller host, customer migration provides a valuable service. If your customers have multiple domains or they are having trouble gathering their site files, you may be requested to help with migrating their account to your Reseller Hosting environment.
Website Transfer Services
We receive many Website Transfer Requests at InMotion Hosting. In your own hosting enterprise you decide whether or not you will provide website transfers.
You can also submit website transfer requests to InMotion Hosting.
If you choose to offer in-house website transfer services then there are a few variables you must consider in advance. Does your customer use cPanel? Where is their DNS pointing? How will you test the site after transfer?
Check out our full pre-transfer checklist guide for more information.
cPanel to cPanel Website Transfer
We use cPanel in our Reseller Hosting accounts. If your customers’ former host uses cPanel we can help you manage a cPanel to cPanel transfer. A full cPanel backup will retain website files, cPanel configurations, and email accounts.
In your reseller hosting account you do not have direct access to perform a full cPanel restoration. However, if you upload a full cPanel backup to your account we can restore it via a ticket request.
Submit a verified ticket to Tech Support.
Assessing Your Customer’s DNS Situation
If your customers manage their own domain names you may need to access their account with their registrar to adjust DNS settings.
Consider the following questions:
- Are you going to transfer the domain to us or your preferred registrar?
- Is the domain approaching expiration? If so, then you must determine if you should advise your customer to renew with their current registrar or transfer registration into your management. You should allow at least two weeks for a safe domain transfer.
After the website transfer is complete you will want to to test the functionality of the site before pointing the domain to your Reseller server.
Here are two recommended methods for site testing:
- Hosts file modification is recommended for sites using a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress. This modification made in your local computer will point a given domain to a specific IP address. Thus, you can test a site from the domain name path, as if the domain was already pointing to your server.
- Temporary URL (temp URL) is a direct path to a given cPanel account on your server. (Not recommended for CMS sites.) You can find your Temporary URL in your Account Management Panel.
Does your Customer’s Website Have an SSL?
Management of your customer’s site security needs is not your direct responsibility as a host, unless you are also the site’s developer. However, in order to provide extra support for your customers, you should check to see if they need to migrate an SSL.
An SSL can be migrated with a few simple steps.
- Generate a new CSR on your InMotion reseller server in WHM. You can generate a new CSR in WHM.
- Provide the new CSR to the Certificate Authority who issued the SSL and request that they “re-key” the SSL.
If you or your customer purchased the SSL from InMotion then you can request help with re-keying through a ticket request. However, Website Transfer Requests submitted to InMotion do not include SSL migration.
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