After moving hosts, do not stop at checking the homepage. Test the workflows that matter to visitors and staff.
Check Pages and Media
Open key pages, blog posts, images, downloads, and any custom landing pages.
Test both the preferred domain and its www variant over HTTPS. Look for mixed-content warnings, missing fonts, broken background images and links that still point to a temporary hostname. Check a representative old URL to confirm required redirects survived the move.
Check Forms
Submit contact forms and confirm the messages arrive in the right inbox.
Use a recognisable test subject, confirm the visitor sees a success message and check the recipient, spam folder and any stored form-entry area. Test password resets, order notifications and SMTP-based mail separately because one successful contact form does not prove every sending route works.
Check Admin Areas
Log in, edit a draft page, upload an image, and check for warnings or errors.
Confirm file permissions allow legitimate updates without making files broadly writable. Save a permalink or routing setting, clear application caches and inspect the server error log. For a shop or membership site, test a low-value or sandbox transaction and confirm the resulting account, email and callback.
Check Background Tasks
Review cron jobs, scheduled posts, backups, and payment callbacks if the site uses them.
Scheduled work may depend on a control-panel cron entry that was not stored inside the website backup. Confirm the destination schedule, command path, PHP version and time zone. Verify that a new backup has completed on the new host instead of relying only on an imported archive.
Test DNS and Email Separately
Check the authoritative A, AAAA and CNAME records and make sure an old IPv6 record is not splitting visitors between servers. If nameservers changed, compare MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and verification records with the previous zone. Send mail into and out of every important domain.
Monitor Before Closing the Old Account
Watch uptime, application logs, resource use, enquiries and orders for at least one normal business cycle. Keep the old service available long enough to investigate discrepancies. Once the new site is stable, take a fresh backup and record the new DNS, control-panel and support details.
A migration is complete when the site works, not just when DNS points at the new server.
