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Your business website is not permanent. Sooner or later, you will want to move it to a new hosting provider, transfer it to a new platform, expand your store, or rebrand your business. Each of these scenarios may require you to migrate your WooCommerce site, involving the transfer of all your data including product, customer, and order information. Not surprisingly, there are many pitfalls to avoid in a move of this magnitude. This article will point out some of the big WooCommerce migration mistakes that can occur and how best to avoid them to minimize data loss and downtime.
With so much data being transferred, the possibility of data loss or corruption is very real during a WooCommerce migration. This can lead to significant downtime and loss of revenue.
To avoid this mistake, creating a comprehensive backup of your entire WordPress installation is a must. It should include your WordPress database, wp-content directory, theme and plugin files, and wp-config.php file. Backups can be done efficiently with Backup Migration or a similar WordPress backup plugin. Be sure to save copies to both your local storage and to the cloud. Test your backups to make sure they are complete and uncorrupted.
Your site is supported by plugins and themes from a variety of developers. Are they all going to work exactly as they did on your new site? That’s a big question mark. If you don’t confirm compatibility prior to migrating your WooCommerce site, outdated and incompatible plugins and themes can cause errors, broken layouts, and other functionality issues on your new site.
Preparation for your site migration should include updating plugins and themes along with researching the compatibility of all these site functionality tools with the new WooCommerce environment. You will also want to confirm Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), MySQL, and WordPress versions between the sites.
Your website database is the crown jewel of your ecommerce platform. This is often the most complex part of your WooCommerce site migration. Many mistakes can occur in this process, including mismatches in data collation, not updating serialized data, missing important tables, incorrectly updating prefix tables, and skipping over the search-replace step for URLs. Any one of these WooCommerce move missteps can result in database corruption, an incomplete transfer, or the loss of valuable data.
The best way to avoid these database headaches is by using a WordPress migration plugin like LitExtension. Carefully following the import and export procedures and verifying your data’s integrity can help ensure a successful migration.
Permalinks are important both for visitors and search engines in providing context to what to expect on a page. Their viability has an impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. Some WooCommerce migrations can result in misconfigured or broken permalinks that need to be updated. If you don’t manage the updates correctly, visitors may encounter 404 error pages and your SEO rankings may eventually tank.
A plugin like Permalink Manager Lite can assist with managing your permalinks by creating redirects from the old URLs to the new ones. Another option is implementing 301 redirects to guide the visitor to new page locations. This process can be managed with a plugin like Redirection for all changed URLs.
With so many details to manage for a smooth WooCommerce migration, it can be tempting to gloss over steps that might seem overly cautious. You’ve overseen all the compatibility research and data transfers, isn’t it all good and ready to flip the switch to go live? No, it is not. You still run the risk of undetected errors, such as broken functionality, gateway issues, or even incorrect shipping calculations.
Using a staging site to duplicate your live website allows you to do comprehensive testing. You can check to see how plugins and themes work live, make updates, then test all your changes in a non-live environment. This gives you the opportunity to more closely review your product pages, the checkout process, user accounts, and integrations to catch any last-minute errors before you go live.
Once your new site is live, you can breathe a quick sigh of relief. But that’s not the end of the WooCommerce migration. If you stop there, you may miss some errors that were not immediately obvious during your stage site testing. Some errors that can crop up are missed 404s and broken links.
Once your site is live, you will want to do a rigorous check of all functionalities to confirm they are working, including the purchase process, the payment gateway, and the cart system. You should also review for data accuracy within product details, product images, customer information, order history, and inventory tracking.
Migrating your site to a new hosting provider is a major undertaking with real impacts on your business’s ecommerce. If not managed effectively, you risk increased downtime, faulty data, and damaged SEO. Careful planning and attention to detail every step of the way, whether on your own or with assistance from a third party, can help you avoid many of these WooCommerce migration mistakes.
Pressable makes it easy to do mistake-free WooCommerce website migrations to our hosting platform. We offer three options to choose from. You can manage the process with our Automated Pressable Migration Plugin. If you are the DIY type, we allow you to manually migrate your site over. Or you can take advantage of our seamless white glove assisted migration service and allow our Customer Success Team to manage your migration.
Pressable—part of the Automattic family that also includes WordPress.com, WordPress VIP, and WooCommerce—offers experts with the skills and knowledge to effectively manage your WordPress site. If you’re thinking about switching to managed WordPress hosting, schedule a demo to see how Pressable can support your continued security and growth.
Zach brings a wealth of knowledge to Pressable with more than 15 years of experience in the WordPress world. His journey in WordPress began with creating and maintaining client websites, fostering a deep understanding of the intricacies and challenges of WordPress. Later, his knack for problem-solving and commitment to service led him to pursue a role at Automattic, where he excelled in providing customer support for WooCommerce. His expertise extends beyond technical proficiency to encompass a deep understanding of the WordPress community and its needs. Outside of work, Zach enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, and working on projects around the house.
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