Changing hosting providers can feel awkward for a law firm. Your website may be the first place a prospective client checks your services, office details, people, legal updates and contact forms. A poorly planned move can lead to broken pages, missing enquiries, email disruption or avoidable downtime.

This law firm website migration checklist is written for solicitors, practice managers, office managers, and business owners who want a plain-English guide to planning the move. It focuses on practical risk reduction: what to check before the migration, what to do on launch day, and what to monitor after the site is live on the new hosting.

It is not legal, regulatory or data protection advice. If your migration involves client data, confidential information or wider system changes, involve your internal compliance lead and appropriate professional advisers. On the website hosting side, Giraffe Hosting can support customers with hosting, domains, DNS, SSL, and free migration assistance, while recognising that migrations should be planned carefully rather than treated as a guaranteed zero-downtime exercise.

Why this matters for law firms

A law firm website is more than a brochure. It may receive new client enquiries, advertise urgent services, host lawyer profiles, publish legal commentary and support recruitment. Even a small hosting move can involve several moving parts: website files, WordPress databases, DNS records, SSL certificates, email routing, contact forms and domain settings.

Migration guidance for law firm websites commonly highlights the same themes: careful planning, backups, testing, SEO preservation, security checks and post-migration monitoring. Data migration guidance for legal practices also stresses the importance of understanding the scope of what is being migrated, cleaning up unnecessary material, conducting trial runs, and planning for contingencies.

Before you start: decide what is actually moving

First, confirm whether you are only moving website hosting or whether the project also includes domain registration, email hosting, DNS management, a website redesign, or a change to the content management system. These are often confused, but they are not the same thing.

Pre-migration checklist for solicitors

1. Audit the current website

Make a simple inventory before anything is moved. This does not need to be highly technical. Record the current website platform, important pages, enquiry forms, landing pages, blog or news posts, downloadable PDFs, tracking tools, redirects and any special functionality.

For a law firm, pay particular attention to pages that generate enquiries: service pages, location pages, solicitor profiles, complaints information, contact pages and pages linked from advertising or email signatures. If your site has a members' area, a payment form, a recruitment form, or a document upload feature, flag it early.

2. Back up files, databases and key settings

Before migration, ensure there is a full backup of the website files and database. For WordPress sites, the database is especially important because it normally contains posts, pages, settings, users and form plugin data. Also, keep copies of important configuration details such as DNS records, redirects and email settings.

Backups are your safety net. Migration guidance consistently warns that data loss is a key risk when moving a site. Do not rely on a single backup method if the website is important to daily operations.

3. Check what should not be moved

A migration is a useful opportunity to tidy the site. Remove old staging copies, unused plugins, outdated themes, unnecessary administrator accounts and files that are no longer needed. Data migration guidance for law firms commonly recommends cleansing and organising data before the move, rather than moving everything without review.

For website content, this might mean identifying old draft pages, duplicate PDFs, obsolete staff profiles or test forms. Keep a record of anything removed so the firm can review it later if necessary.

4. Record all DNS records before changing anything

DNS records control where your website and email services point. Before migration day, export or copy the current DNS zone if possible. At minimum, record the A record, CNAME records, MX records, TXT records and any records used for verification or email authentication.

This is one of the most important parts of the process. Changing DNS too early is a common mistake. If DNS is changed before the new site is ready and tested, visitors may be sent to an unfinished website or an error page.

If your team wants a refresher, Giraffe Hosting has a plain-English guide to the basics of DNS management.

5. Decide whether to transfer the domain now or later

You do not always need to transfer the domain name at the same time as the website hosting. In many cases, it is simpler to move the website first, confirm it works, and then transfer the domain registration later if required.

Separating the two steps can reduce confusion, as the domain registrar, DNS provider, and hosting provider may be different organisations. If the domain is moved at the same time as hosting, make sure you know who controls DNS during the transition.

For more details, see Giraffe Hosting's domain transfer guide and its notes on common domain transfer issues.

6. Prepare SSL before launch

The new hosting environment should be ready to serve the site over HTTPS. If the SSL certificate is missing or misconfigured, visitors may see security warnings in their browser. This can damage trust, especially for a law firm handling sensitive enquiries.

Check whether the SSL certificate will be installed automatically by the new host or whether any manual action is needed after DNS changes. Build this into the launch plan rather than leaving it as an afterthought.

7. Protect email continuity

Email is often the part of a migration that causes the most anxiety. Website hosting and email hosting may be connected, but they are not always the same service. Before any DNS changes, confirm where mailboxes are hosted and which MX records are in use.

If your firm uses Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or another separate email provider, take extra care not to overwrite existing MX, SPF, DKIM, or verification records when changing website DNS records. A website migration should not accidentally interrupt the user's email.

Staging tests before launch

A staging site is a private or temporary version of the website on the new hosting. It lets you test the migrated site before the public DNS records are changed.

On staging, check the following:

• Key pages load correctly, including service pages, contact pages and solicitor profiles.
• Menus, internal links and footer links work.
• Images, PDFs and downloads open as expected.
• Contact forms are sent to the correct inbox.
• Form confirmation messages are clear and accurate.
• Spam protection or CAPTCHA tools work.
• Redirects from old URLs are in place where needed.
• Analytics, call tracking and advertising tags are still present if used.
• The site works on mobile devices.
• The admin area is accessible only to the right users.

Failing to test contact forms is one of the most common and costly migration mistakes. A website can look perfect while silently failing to deliver enquiries. Send test enquiries from outside the office network and confirm they arrive in the correct mailbox or case intake system.

Migration day checklist

Choose a sensible launch window. For many law firms, this may mean avoiding peak working hours, major marketing campaigns, important recruitment deadlines, or known court-related peaks in urgent service areas. The aim is not to pretend there is no risk, but to reduce avoidable disruption.

1. Freeze content changes. Ask staff not to edit the website during the final migration window.
2. Take a final backup. Capture the latest files and database before switching traffic.
3. Confirm staging approval. Make sure the responsible person has signed off on the staged version.
4. Update DNS at the right time. Point the website records to the new hosting only when the new site is ready.
5. Check SSL. Confirm HTTPS works once DNS points to the new host.
6. Test the public site. Visit the live domain from different devices or networks.
7. Submit contact forms. Test each important enquiry form and check delivery.
8. Check email records. Confirm email routing has not been disturbed.
9. Keep the old hosting temporarily. Do not cancel the old service immediately in case a rollback or file check is needed.

Post-launch monitoring

The work does not finish when the homepage loads. Monitor the site closely for at least the first few days after launch.

• Check for broken links and missing images.
• Review contact form delivery and spam filtering.
• Check website speed and server errors.
• Confirm redirects are working for changed URLs.
• Watch analytics for unexpected drops in traffic or conversions.
• Ask the reception or intake teams whether enquiry volumes look normal.
• Check that SSL remains valid and no browser warnings appear.
• Keep backups of both the old and new sites until the move is fully settled.

Law firm website migration guidance often stresses post-migration SEO health checks, performance monitoring and user feedback. For solicitors, user feedback can be simple: ask staff whether clients are reporting website problems, whether enquiry emails are arriving, and whether key pages are easy to access.

Common law firm website migration mistakes

• Changing DNS too early. This can send visitors to an unprepared site.
• Forgetting email records. Overwriting MX or TXT records can disrupt email or verification services.
• Not testing contact forms. A form can appear to work while failing to send enquiries.
• Cancelling old hosting immediately. Keep it available until the migration has been checked thoroughly.
• Moving the domain and hosting without a plan. Doing both at once can make it unclear who controls DNS.
• Ignoring SSL. Missing HTTPS can create browser warnings and reduce confidence.
• Skipping backups. Without a reliable backup, recovery becomes much harder.
• Not checking redirects. Broken or changed URLs can affect users and search visibility.

How Giraffe Hosting can help

Giraffe Hosting Limited is a UK-based hosting provider offering web hosting, WordPress hosting, managed cloud hosting, VPS hosting, domain registration and domain transfer services. The company has provided UK hosting services since 2007. It supports customers with onboarding, 24/7 support, daily backups, security features including Web Application Firewall protection, malware scanning and DDoS protection, and a platform powered by 100% renewable energy.

For law firms moving hosting providers, Giraffe Hosting offers support and free migration assistance. That can include practical help with the hosting move, DNS preparation and migration checks. No responsible provider should overpromise that every migration will have no downtime; the safer approach is to plan carefully, test thoroughly,y and communicate clearly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a law firm check before moving to a hosting provider?

Check the current website platform, files, database, important pages, contact forms, DNS records, SSL certificate, email routing, redirects and tracking tools. Migration guidance for law firm websites highlights planning, documentation, backups and testing as key ways to reduce risk.

How can solicitors reduce website downtime during migration?

Use a staging site, take complete backups, prepare DNS records in advance, choose a sensible launch window and test the site before switching public traffic. Keeping the old hosting active temporarily also provides a fallback while checks are completed.

Should the domain be transferred at the same time as hosting?

Not always. It is often simpler to move the website hosting first and transfer the domain later if needed. This can reduce confusion over who controls DNS during the migration. If both are moved together, confirm the timing and DNS responsibility before starting.

What happens to DNS, SSL and email during a migration?

DNS tells visitors and email systems where to go, SSL enables HTTPS, and email records route messages to the correct mail service. During a hosting move, website DNS records may need to change, but email records should be preserved unless the email service is also moving.

How should the firm test the new hosting environment before launch?

Use a staging version of the website and check key pages, menus, mobile display, downloads, redirects, SSL, analytics and every important contact form. Send real test enquiries and confirm they arrive in the correct inbox or intake process.