How to Move Your WordPress Site Away From GoDaddy
Keep your domain at GoDaddy. Keep your email. Move only the hosting — with no downtime before the DNS cutover.
You can move your WordPress site off GoDaddy hosting without transferring your domain away from GoDaddy, without touching your Microsoft 365 email, and without taking your live site offline while the copy runs. Your GoDaddy site keeps serving visitors until you change DNS, and if you prepare the cutover properly, nobody sees an error page.
Why this feels harder than it is
GoDaddy migrations carry a specific fear that SiteGround or WP Engine migrations don't: for most GoDaddy customers, GoDaddy is also the registrar, also the DNS host, and often also where the email subscription lives. It feels like one indivisible thing. It isn't. You can move the hosting and leave everything else exactly where it is, and for most people that's the right call.also the registrar, also the DNS host, and often also where the email subscription lives. It feels like one indivisible thing. It isn't. You can move the hosting on its own and leave everything else untouched, and for most people that's the right way to start.
To be clear about what I'm recommending: this is about sequence, not permanence. You can bring your domain, DNS, and mailboxes to HonestHosting too — plenty of people do, and having everything on one invoice makes costs easier to track. What I'd avoid is doing it all in the same week. Move the hosting, let it settle, then bring the rest across as its own task if you want to. Changing several things at once is what turns a straightforward migration into a confusing one.
This guide walks through a migration from GoDaddy Managed Hosting for WordPress to HonestHosting using the HonestHosting Site Migrator. The concepts — what moves, what stays, how to cut DNS over safely, what GoDaddy leaves behind in your site — apply regardless of where you're going.
One quick check before you start: make sure you're actually on WordPress. GoDaddy also sells "Websites + Marketing," which is their own website builder and is not WordPress. If you log in and there's no wp-admin, this guide doesn't apply to you — there's no WordPress site to migrate, and moving means rebuilding.
What actually needs to move?
The thing people call "my website" is really four separate services that happen to be on one GoDaddy invoice.
Hosting — the only thing that has to move
PHP, the database, your files.
Domain registration — doesn't have to move now
GoDaddy is the largest registrar in the world and there is nothing wrong with leaving your domain registered there forever. Moving your hosting does not require touching it, and I'd actively recommend against combining the two changes. If you want to transfer the domain later, do it later, as its own task, once the website is settled.
DNS hosting — leave the zone alone for the migration
The records that tell the internet where to find things. GoDaddy's DNS is fine. You can leave the whole zone where it is and change only the two or three records that point at the web server.
Email — follows MX, not your website
If you're on Microsoft 365 through GoDaddy, your MX records point at Microsoft's mail servers, and moving your website doesn't affect them at all. Leave MX alone and your mail keeps working.
Cancelling GoDaddy hosting and your other GoDaddy products. Hosting, domain registration, and Microsoft 365 are sold as separate products on the same account, so cancelling one should not cancel another. However, you must confirm this against GoDaddy's own documentation before you cancel anything.
Before you leave GoDaddy
Work through this first. It's the difference between a boring migration and an interesting one.
Access and inventory
- WordPress administrator access to the live site — you need to install a plugin, so an account with
manage_options. - GoDaddy account access, for DNS, backups, and eventually cancellation.
- Download a backup you control. GoDaddy keeps the previous 30 days and lets you take one on demand. Take one and download it somewhere that isn't GoDaddy.
Where the pieces actually live
- Confirm the registrar. It's probably GoDaddy, but check — plenty of people host at GoDaddy with the domain registered elsewhere.
- Confirm which nameservers are authoritative with
dig NS yourdomain.com. If they're Cloudflare's, your DNS is at Cloudflare and the GoDaddy DNS screen isn't what's live. - Export the full DNS zone — every record, not just the web ones.
- Note your MX records and which provider they point at (Microsoft 365 through GoDaddy shows Outlook/Microsoft hostnames).
- Note your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC TXT records. These fail silently and the symptom appears days later as "our email goes to spam now."
- Note any verification TXT records — Microsoft, Google, Search Console.
The site itself
- WordPress version. GoDaddy applies core updates automatically, so you may be on a newer version than you remember.
- PHP version (Tools → Site Health, or the GoDaddy dashboard).
- Size of
wp-contentand roughly how many files. - Database size.
- Plugin inventory — and specifically, what's missing. If you've been on Managed WordPress you have not been running a caching or backup plugin, because GoDaddy blocklists most of them. Note what you'd actually want to run once you're free to.
- Look for
wp-content/mu-plugins/and note what's in there. On GoDaddy Managed WordPress there will be agd-system-pluginand friends. - Look for
wp-content/object-cache.php. GoDaddy installs an object cache drop-in. - Custom redirects in
.htaccessor a plugin. - Is Cloudflare (or another CDN) in front of the site?
Set up the destination and connect
Step 1: Create the HonestHosting site
In the HonestHosting app, open Site and click + Site:
| Field | What to choose |
|---|---|
| Site Name | Something you'll recognise in a list later. |
| Site Type | WordPress, at the version matching the GoDaddy site. |
| Site Tier | The CPU and memory allocation. Changeable later without re-migrating. |
| Datacenter | Closest to your audience. |
| Storage GB | Comfortably above the measured wp-content size. |
| DB Storage GB | Comfortably above the measured database size. |
| Property | The client this site belongs to, if you group by client. |
Then enable the Import toggle — that's what generates the import key. Match the source site's WordPress and PHP versions here. You can migrate across versions, but if you change the runtime and the host in one move and something breaks afterwards, you won't know which one did it. Migrate first, upgrade second. The site provisions in about a minute.
Step 2: Get your import key
Open the new site and copy the Import Key. Treat it like a password. It authorises writing a complete site into your account and it's scoped to that one destination site. If it leaks, tell us and we'll rotate it.
Step 3: Install the Site Migrator on your GoDaddy site
Log into the WordPress admin of the site on GoDaddy — the source site. Plugins → Add New, search for HonestHosting Site Migrator, install, and activate. Releases are also on GitHub.
- Requires WordPress 6.7+, runs on PHP 7.4 through 8.5.
- No shell access and no external binaries — pure PHP.
- It only contacts the HonestHosting API and S3, and only after you enter an import key and click something.
A GoDaddy-specific note: GoDaddy maintains a plugin blocklist and states that blocklisted plugins are removed if detected (GoDaddy Help — Blocklisted plugins). The Site Migrator is not on that list — it isn't a backup, caching, or stats plugin, which are the categories the blocklist targets. If it ever were blocked, the fallback is the manual path further down this article.
Step 4: Connect the source site
Go to Tools → HonestHosting Migrator, paste the Import Key, and click Validate Key. The plugin fetches the destination site's details and shows them back — name, URL, type, tier, storage, datacenter. Read them. This is your confirmation you're writing into the site you think you are.
Two other settings: Chunk Size (default 10 MB, adjustable 5–20 MB — leave it unless asked) and Compression (leave it on; chunks are gzipped before upload). Click Save Changes.
Run the migration and validate it
Step 5: Run preflight checks
Click Run Preflight Checks. This decides whether the migration will work, and it's worth knowing what it tests:
- File analysis — walks
wp-content, totals size and file count, flags unusually large files. - Database analysis — size, table count, storage engines, flagging engines that may not restore cleanly.
- PHP compatibility — source PHP version against the destination.
- Hosting environment —
memory_limit(warns below 64M),max_execution_time(warns below 30s),upload_max_filesize,post_max_size, whether curl is loaded, whetheropen_basedirrestricts file access, whether gzip is available, and whether WP-Cron is usable. - Migration readiness — required PHP extensions and functions, writable session state directory, and whether an unfinished session is lying around.
- Destination fingerprint and capacity — name, URL, tier, storage, datacenter, plus warnings on version mismatches and whether there's room for what's coming.
Errors block the migration — deliberately, because each one represents a migration that would fail partway through. Warnings don't block and mostly shouldn't alarm you: a low max_execution_time warning just means the export will lean on resume support, which is what it's built to do.
Step 6: Start the migration
With preflight clean, choose Full Import and click Start Migration.
Chunks go straight to S3, not through our API. Payloads move directly from your GoDaddy site to storage via short-lived, single-use presigned URLs, so there's no intermediary bottleneck or size ceiling.
Everything is checkpointed. Which files are done, which tables are done, which chunks are uploaded — all written to a local session store as it goes. If PHP times out, the page reloads, or the network drops, click Resume Migration and it continues from the last checkpoint.
What comes across. The migrator exports wp-content and your database, not WordPress core — the destination provides that. On a GoDaddy migration that has a useful side effect: GoDaddy's platform integration lives in wp-content/mu-plugins/ and wp-content/object-cache.php, so those do come across, and Step 9 is where you remove them.
The migrator does not rewrite your URLs. Your database arrives with siteurl and home still set to your production domain. When DNS moves, the site is already configured for the domain it's about to serve — no search-and-replace, no mixed-content scramble (but you should still double-check).
Step 7: Monitor the migration
Watch it from both ends. On the GoDaddy side, the plugin shows live progress and a refreshable log. On the HonestHosting side, expand the Logs section on the destination site — manifest loaded, database connected, tables replayed, files written.
- Duration. Roughly 2–5 minutes each way for a small site, up to about 30 minutes each way for a large one. Drivers are total size, file count, your plan's execution limits, and upstream bandwidth.
- Your live site stays up. The export reads from the source. It doesn't modify it or put it in maintenance mode.
- If it fails, the log says why. Click Resume Migration. If it keeps failing, click Download Debug Data — a JSON bundle with the import key redacted — and send it to us.
- If you need to start over, click Cancel. That clears both the local session and the import on our side. An import left non-terminal will reject a new one with a 409, so Cancel is what unsticks a weird state.
Step 8: Preview the site — before touching DNS
You don't need to change DNS to look at it. Every site has its own origin URL — a unique hostname on our domain, shown on the site detail page — and the moment the import finishes, your migrated site is live there with a valid certificate. Open it and check the copy while GoDaddy carries on serving your visitors.
One thing to know while you're looking: the migrator doesn't rewrite URLs stored in your content, so absolute links and image sources still point at your production domain — which is still GoDaddy. Pages render, but some assets are being fetched from the old host. That's expected and it resolves itself at cutover. It does mean the preview isn't proof your media transferred, so check the Media Library in wp-admin rather than trusting the front end.
Then actually test it — not "the homepage loaded":
- Homepage, and several representative interior pages — one per template or builder type
- A blog post with images — do the images render?
- Media Library in wp-admin — thumbnails present?
wp-adminlogin- A contact form, submitted end to end
- Site search, custom post types, archives, menus and widgets
- Known redirects
- Every plugin that does something visible — did its settings survive?
- WooCommerce: product pages, add to cart, cart, checkout up to (not through) payment, My Account, admin order list
- Membership/LMS: log in as a member, confirm gating works
Find problems now, while GoDaddy is still live and rolling back costs nothing.
Cleanup, cutover, and cancelling GoDaddy
Step 9: GoDaddy-specific cleanup
This is the part that's genuinely different from any other migration. All of it happens on the migrated copy at HonestHosting, before cutover.
Remove the GoDaddy system plugin. GoDaddy installs its platform integration as a must-use plugin in wp-content/mu-plugins/. Must-use plugins load automatically and cannot be deactivated from the WordPress admin — that's the point of mu-plugins. Off GoDaddy's platform that code has nothing to integrate with, and it typically throws PHP notices and does nothing useful.
Enable FileManager (Site → Edit → FileManager toggle), connect over the web interface or SFTP, and look in wp-content/mu-plugins/ for gd-system-plugin.php, a gd-system-plugin/ directory, and possibly a wp-cli-plugin or similar. The HonestHosting site runtime typically removes known-bad GoDaddy files — some plugins and some agencies put genuine must-use code in there, and you need it to survive.
Reconsider the plugins you weren't allowed to have. On HonestHosting there's no blocklist, so you can run what you want. (We'd still act on something actively malicious or harming the platform — but that's a response to a specific problem, not a standing list.) Before you reinstall a caching plugin out of habit, know what's already there:
- Page caching is handled at the server by Sidekick, our Caddy caching module. You generally do not want a second page-cache plugin on top of it.
- LiteSpeed Cache specifically won't work here. Its page cache needs a LiteSpeed web server, and we run Caddy with FrankenPHP. Nothing stops you installing it — it just won't do the thing you installed it for.
- Object caching is the Redis toggle.
- Backups are the per-site Backup toggle, written to object storage.
So the honest advice is: the plugins GoDaddy blocked are mostly ones you still don't need here, for a different reason — the platform does that job. What you've gained isn't "install W3 Total Cache," it's "no plugin gets removed from your site for being on a list."
.htaccess. GoDaddy sites run on a stack that reads .htaccess. HonestHosting sites are served by Caddy, which doesn't. Standard WordPress permalink rules are handled for you; custom rules — redirects, security directives, expires headers — are not, and need recreating.
Scheduled tasks. WP-Cron jobs registered by plugins live in the database and came across. Anything scheduled at the server level in GoDaddy's dashboard did not. Recreate what you need.
Step 10: Prepare the DNS cutover
Do this 24 to 48 hours before cutover. Lower your TTL first. Find the A (and AAAA, if present) records — usually @ and www — and set TTL to 300 seconds. Then wait at least as long as the old TTL was, because resolvers worldwide are still holding the previous value. This single step is the difference between "DNS took four minutes" and "DNS took two days."
| Record | Action |
|---|---|
A / AAAA for apex and www | Change to the new host |
CNAME pointing at the web host | Change if it points at GoDaddy hosting |
MX | DO NOT TOUCH — this is your email |
TXT (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) | DO NOT TOUCH — email authentication |
TXT verification (Microsoft, Google, Search Console) | Leave alone |
CNAME for Microsoft 365 (autodiscover, similar) | Leave alone — these are email, not web |
CNAME for third-party services | Leave alone unless pointed at GoDaddy hosting |
SRV (Microsoft 365 uses these), CAA | Leave alone |
The Microsoft 365 trap specifically. A GoDaddy zone with Microsoft 365 email contains more than just MX: there are autodiscover CNAME records and often SRV records that make Outlook clients configure themselves. They look like infrastructure records and they are easy to "tidy up" during a migration. Leave every one of them exactly as it is.
The nameserver trap. The fastest way to break email while "just moving the website" is to switch nameservers without copying every record first. Nameserver changes replace your entire zone. If the new zone doesn't have your MX and Microsoft records, mail stops — often silently, because your mail client keeps showing messages you already downloaded and it's the incoming mail that's disappearing.
My recommendation for GoDaddy customers: don't move DNS during the migration. Leave the zone at GoDaddy, use Custom DNS on the HonestHosting site, and change only the web records. Two caveats: apex domains aren't supported in that mode, so your primary hostname needs to be www with the apex redirecting to it; and you place the certificate validation records yourself, first, before the site records (Custom DNS, Apex Domain).
If you're behind Cloudflare, this is easier. Nameservers stay at Cloudflare, MX and TXT stay untouched, and you change the origin the proxied records point at. Set the record to DNS-only (grey cloud) while testing, verify, then re-enable the proxy.
Step 11: Change DNS
- Run one final incremental sync. Run Incremental – All immediately before cutover so anything added since the full copy comes across.
- Change the A/AAAA records in GoDaddy's DNS management to point at the HonestHosting site.
- Leave everything else exactly as it is.
- Watch it propagate.
dig yourdomain.comanddig www.yourdomain.com, plus a multi-location DNS checker. With a 300-second TTL you'll see it flip within minutes.
During propagation, some visitors resolve to GoDaddy and some to HonestHosting. Both are serving a working site, so nobody sees an error. The only consequence is that a form submission or comment landing on the old site during the window stays there — which is why the final incremental goes before the cutover and the window should be short.
Step 12: Verify production traffic
- DNS resolves to the new host from several locations
- HTTP redirects to HTTPS, and the TLS certificate covers both apex and
www - Homepage and interior pages load; images and media load with nothing still pointing at a GoDaddy URL
wp-adminlogin works- A contact form submission arrives where it should
- Send an email to yourself at your domain, and send one out. Both directions, immediately — not tomorrow
- Outlook / Microsoft 365 clients still connect and sync
- Redirects still redirect; analytics is recording; Search Console shows no new crawl errors
- Scheduled posts and WP-Cron are firing
- No PHP notices from leftover GoDaddy mu-plugins — if you see any, go back to Step 9
- WooCommerce: place a real test order end to end and confirm the confirmation email arrives
- Caching behaving — check response headers, and confirm logged-in users aren't served cached pages
Do not cancel GoDaddy hosting yet. Leave it running at least a couple of weeks. One more month is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy.
Step 13: Finalise, and cancel GoDaddy carefully
- Take a fresh backup of the HonestHosting site and confirm the daily backup toggle is on.
- Confirm recent content is intact — posts, comments, form entries, and for a store, that order numbers are sequential with no gap at cutover.
- Deactivate and delete the Site Migrator from the old GoDaddy site.
- Turn off FileManager and phpMyAdmin if you enabled them during cleanup.
- Check monitoring and uptime checks point at the new host.
- Download a final backup from GoDaddy. Once the account is gone, so are their backups.
Cancelling GoDaddy hosting without breaking anything else. This is where GoDaddy customers get hurt, because so much lives in one account. Work through it in this order:
- Cancel the hosting product only. Not the domain. Not Microsoft 365. GoDaddy sells these as separate products on the same account, and you want to end exactly one of them.
- Leave the domain registered at GoDaddy unless you have a specific reason to move it. If you do want to transfer it, do that afterwards, as its own task.
- Confirm cancelling hosting doesn't disturb the DNS zone. DNS for a domain registered at GoDaddy is normally tied to the domain, not the hosting product.
- Confirm Microsoft 365 is unaffected.
- Understand the refund terms before you cancel. Annual plans are refundable within 30 days of the transaction; hosting already performed is non-refundable; if the purchase included a free domain, the domain's list price is deducted; after 30 days you remain responsible for the year but won't be billed for the next renewal; and refund requests must be made by phone, SMS, or chat — emailed requests aren't processed (GoDaddy Refund Policy). In practice most people leaving mid-term aren't getting money back, and cancelling is really about stopping the next renewal.
Common problems when leaving GoDaddy
PHP notices or fatal errors after migrating
Almost always leftover GoDaddy code. Check wp-content/mu-plugins/ for gd-system-plugin files and wp-content/object-cache.php for their drop-in. Remove both (Step 9). This is the single most common GoDaddy-specific migration problem and it usually shows as warnings at the top of wp-admin.
The site is slow or caching behaves strangely
A stale object-cache.php drop-in pointing at GoDaddy's cache backend, or two caching layers fighting. Remove GoDaddy's drop-in first, then enable Redis.
Images still reference the old host
Usually cached HTML or a CDN serving old markup rather than the images themselves. Purge every cache layer, then check the database for absolute URLs pointing at a GoDaddy domain. If you kept your production domain there should be nothing to rewrite.
WordPress redirects to the old site
Check siteurl and home in wp_options first, then redirect plugins, then .htaccess rules you recreated. If you're previewing at the origin URL and getting bounced to your live site, a Primary domain is already configured on the site — the platform points WordPress at that hostname, and it still resolves to GoDaddy.
Website works but email stopped
MX records changed, or nameservers were replaced without carrying MX across. Run dig MX yourdomain.com and compare against the zone export you took at the start. On Microsoft 365, also check the autodiscover CNAME and any SRV records — if Outlook can't autodiscover, users report "email is broken" even when mail is flowing.
SSL isn't working
Certificates are issued once the hostname resolves to the new server, so an error immediately post-cutover usually means DNS hasn't propagated. On Custom DNS it more often means validation records weren't placed first — the platform shows expected versus actual.
Cloudflare still points at GoDaddy
Cloudflare proxies to whatever origin its records name. Changing nameservers at the registrar doesn't help if the records inside Cloudflare still point at GoDaddy. Edit the A record in the Cloudflare dashboard.
Caching serves the old site
Five possible layers: browser, Sidekick server cache, Redis object cache, CDN edge, and the visitor's ISP. Try a private window first, then purge the CDN (CDN invalidation), then the object cache. Our CDN never caches /wp-admin/*, /wp-json/*, or wp-login.php, so stale wp-admin isn't the CDN.
Page builder content references old URLs
Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder and similar store layouts as serialised arrays. A naive find-and-replace corrupts the serialisation and breaks the layout. Use a serialisation-aware tool — and if your domain didn't change, you shouldn't need one at all.
WooCommerce changed during migration
Orders placed on the old site after the export don't exist on the new one. Run Incremental – All immediately before the DNS change, keep the cutover window short, and afterwards confirm order IDs are sequential with no gap. For a high-volume store, a brief maintenance window during the switch is a legitimate choice.
Zero-downtime migration
The whole method is built around one principle: never break what's working until the replacement is proven.
The live site never goes down. The copy is a read operation. Preview is scoped to your own machine. During propagation both copies serve correctly. Rollback at any point before cancellation is: point DNS back.
For dynamic sites, the genuinely tricky part is data written to the old site after the export. Incremental sync plus a short cutover window handles most of it. For a store doing real order volume, consider a short maintenance window: put the store in maintenance mode, run the final incremental, change DNS, verify, come back up. Ten minutes of "we'll be right back" beats a lost order.
Should you actually leave GoDaddy?
Reasons to leave that I think are legitimate
- The plugin blocklist. If you've had a plugin removed from your own site, or you can't run tooling your workflow depends on, you've hit the edge of the managed-platform trade. That's structural, not a preference.
- The renewal price. Introductory rates are substantially below renewal rates. It's the industry norm, not a trick, but it's a real budget change.
- You've outgrown the box. A managed platform is a set of decisions someone else made. Once you have opinions about caching, updates, or resource allocation, those decisions start costing you.
- You're an agency. No API, no client billing in the panel, and a plugin policy applied to every client site you run there.
Reasons to stay that are equally legitimate
- 24/7 phone support. I'm a small operation and I can't match it.
- Bundled malware scanning and removal on the higher tiers — a real service that matters if you'd have no idea what to do with a compromised site.
- Lowest entry price.
- One account for domain, DNS, hosting, and email, where GoDaddy is also your registrar — that makes pointing a domain a non-event.
- It's working. A migration that gains you nothing still costs a weekend.
GoDaddy alternatives
If you're leaving, the options sort into categories:
- Other budget shared hosting. Cheap, similar architecture, similar constraints. Doesn't fix a resource or control problem.
- Managed WordPress platforms (WP Engine, Kinsta, Flywheel). Purpose-built, usually priced per site with visit-based tiers, strong on staging and developer workflow. Generally a step up in price — and note that most of them also restrict plugins, so check the list before assuming you've escaped that.
- Cloud/VPS (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, with or without a panel). Cheapest per unit of compute; you become the sysadmin.
- Isolated per-site WordPress hosting — where HonestHosting sits. A container and a database per site, guaranteed resources, per-site pricing, no plugin blocklist, managed for you.
- Agency-oriented hosting, where multi-client management, client billing, and an API matter as much as the hosting. Also where I sit.
No "10 best hosts" list with affiliate links here. Work out whether your problem is price, resources, or control, and pick the category that fixes that.
Moving to HonestHosting
If you're heading here, this is what you get for the migration itself:
- The Site Migrator plugin, free, on WordPress.org — chunked, resumable, direct-to-S3, with preflight validation, full and incremental modes, and optional scheduled sync.
- A destination you can validate before cutover, because the production site is never touched and DNS doesn't move until you say so.
- Per-site containers with guaranteed CPU and memory, plus a dedicated database container per site.
- No plugin blocklist. Nothing gets removed for being on a list, though we'd still act on something actively malicious.
- Help from us if you want it. The tooling is self-service by design, but if you'd rather we ran it — or you have a store and want a second pair of eyes on the cutover — get in touch.
What I won't claim: that every migration is trivial. Most are straightforward. Large stores, sites with heavy customisation, and anything with unusual server configuration take real work, and I'd rather set that expectation now.
Migration FAQ
Can I leave GoDaddy hosting but keep my domain registered there?
Yes, and it's the right way to start. Domain registration and hosting are separate products on the same account. Cancel the hosting, keep the domain, and change only the DNS records that point at the web server. If you'd rather consolidate later — domain, DNS, and mailboxes all on one HonestHosting invoice — you can do that as its own task once the site has settled.
Will moving WordPress cause downtime?
Not during the copy — your GoDaddy site stays live throughout. At the DNS cutover, both copies serve correctly during propagation, so visitors don't see an error. Lower your TTL 24–48 hours beforehand and the transition is minutes.
Will my Microsoft 365 email stop working?
Not if you leave your MX records alone. Email follows MX, not your website. Also leave the autodiscover CNAME and any SRV records alone — those are what let Outlook configure itself, and removing them breaks clients even when mail is flowing. Whether cancelling GoDaddy hosting affects a Microsoft 365 subscription bought through GoDaddy is being confirmed.
Do I need to change nameservers?
No, and for GoDaddy customers I'd recommend against it. Leave the zone at GoDaddy, use Custom DNS on the HonestHosting site, and change two or three records. Changing nameservers replaces your entire zone, which is the most common way people accidentally break their email.
Can I keep using Cloudflare?
Yes, and it makes the cutover easier. Nameservers stay at Cloudflare, MX and TXT stay untouched, and you change the origin your proxied records point at. Set the record to DNS-only while testing, then re-enable the proxy.
Will my URLs change?
No. The migrator deliberately doesn't rewrite siteurl or home, so the site arrives configured for the domain it already uses. No search-and-replace, no permalink changes.
Will migrating hurt my SEO?
It shouldn't. URLs don't change, content doesn't change, and the site doesn't go offline. Keep the same domain and permalink structure, verify redirects after cutover, and watch Search Console for a couple of weeks.
What happens to my SSL certificate?
You get a new one, free and auto-renewed, issued once your domain resolves to the new host. You don't move the old certificate. On Custom DNS you place validation records yourself, first.
Do I have to remove GoDaddy's plugins?
Yes — the gd-system-plugin must-use plugin and the object-cache.php drop-in both need removing after migrating. They can't be deactivated from the WordPress admin (that's what "must-use" means), so you remove the files via FileManager or SFTP. Step 9 covers it.
Can I finally install the caching plugin GoDaddy blocked?
You can install whatever you like — there's no blocklist here. But you probably don't want a page-caching plugin, because page caching is handled at the server by Sidekick and object caching is the Redis toggle. What you've actually gained is that no plugin gets removed from your site for being on a list. (We'd still act on something actively malicious, but that's a security response, not a policy.)
How long does the migration take?
Roughly 2–5 minutes each for export and restore on a small site; up to about 30 minutes each on a large one. Preparation and testing take longer than the transfer.
When should I cancel GoDaddy?
Not for at least two weeks after cutover. And cancel the hosting product only — not the domain, not Microsoft 365. Note that GoDaddy's refund policy makes mid-term refunds unlikely, so cancelling is mostly about stopping the next renewal.
What if the migration fails halfway?
Click Resume Migration; it continues from the last checkpoint. If it keeps failing, Download Debug Data and send us the bundle — the import key is redacted. Your live site is unaffected either way.
References
GoDaddy (primary sources, verified 26 August 2026)
- GoDaddy Help — Blocklisted plugins
- GoDaddy Help — Managed Hosting for WordPress (hub)
- GoDaddy Help — What is Managed Hosting for WordPress?
- GoDaddy Help — Flush your cache
- GoDaddy — Refund Policy
HonestHosting
Move your site from GoDaddy
Create a HonestHosting site, enable the Import toggle, install the migrator on your GoDaddy site, and run the preflight checks. Within a few minutes you'll know whether your site will move cleanly — before committing to anything, and without touching your domain or your email.