Changing the person who looks after your WordPress website shouldn’t require a Cold War prisoner exchange.

In most cases, another WordPress developer can take over an existing website without it needing to be rebuilt from scratch. You aren’t normally tied to the person or company who originally designed it, and changing developer doesn’t necessarily mean changing your domain name, email provider or even your hosting.

WordPress is designed to be portable. Provided the necessary access is available, an existing website can usually be handed over, maintained, moved to different hosting or developed further by somebody else.

The important part is establishing exactly what you have access to – and who currently controls what.

You don’t have to stay with the developer who built your website

Businesses change website providers for all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps your original developer has stopped trading. Maybe they’ve become difficult to contact. Your business may have outgrown the service they provide, or you might simply want somebody else to look after the website.

Sometimes there’s no dramatic reason at all. You’ve just decided it’s time for a change.

Whatever the reason, having an existing WordPress website doesn’t usually mean you’re permanently tied to whoever built it.

One of the advantages of using WordPress is that it isn’t a proprietary website builder belonging to a particular design company. Another experienced WordPress developer should be able to inspect an existing website, understand how it has been constructed and decide whether they’re happy to take responsibility for it.

That doesn’t mean every developer will want to take on every WordPress website. Sometimes there are good reasons not to. But technically, changing developer is perfectly normal.

What does a new WordPress developer need?

The first thing a new developer will usually want is WordPress Administrator access.

Administrator access allows them to inspect the website properly, including its theme, plugins, users, settings and general configuration.

Depending on what you want them to do, they may also need access to:

• the website hosting account
• website files and database
• domain name and DNS settings
• backups
• premium theme and plugin licences
• analytics and search accounts
• security or caching services
• forms and other third-party integrations

They won’t necessarily need all of these simply to make changes to the website.

However, if they’re going to become responsible for maintaining or hosting it, they’ll need enough access to understand what they’re inheriting and to recover the website if something goes wrong.

WordPress, hosting and your domain are different things

This is where website ownership can become unnecessarily confusing.

Your WordPress website, website hosting and domain name are separate things.

WordPress is the software and content that make up your website.

Hosting is the server on which that website runs.

Your domain name is the address people use to reach it.

They may all have been supplied by the same company, so from your point of view they can appear to be one service. Technically, however, they don’t have to remain together.

You can move a WordPress website to another hosting company while leaving the domain registered exactly where it is. You can transfer the domain without moving the website. You can also appoint a different developer to maintain the website without changing either.

Understanding that distinction makes changing website provider considerably less mysterious.

What if I don’t have WordPress administrator access?

This needs resolving before somebody else can properly take over the website.

WordPress has several user roles, and they don’t provide the same level of access. An Editor or Author account, for example, isn’t equivalent to an Administrator account.

If another developer is going to become responsible for maintaining your website, they need sufficient access to inspect and manage it.

Your existing provider may have perfectly reasonable security procedures for granting Administrator access. They may want written authorisation or need to verify the request before making changes.

That’s quite different from a website being deliberately structured so that changing provider is unnecessarily difficult.

A business website shouldn’t depend indefinitely on one particular developer being available and willing to make changes.

What if my current developer also provides the hosting?

That’s extremely common and isn’t inherently a problem.

Many web designers provide managed hosting because it makes maintaining websites considerably easier. I do the same for websites I manage.

If you decide to change provider, however, the new developer doesn’t necessarily need access to the existing hosting account forever.

The website can usually be migrated to another suitable WordPress hosting environment.

A typical migration involves making a complete copy of the website files and database, setting the website up on the new server, testing it and then directing the domain to the new hosting.

Done properly, visitors wouldn’t notice that anything has changed.

Do I need to transfer my domain name as well?

Not necessarily.

Moving a website and transferring a domain are separate jobs.

If you’re happy with your existing domain registrar, the domain can remain there while its DNS records are changed to point towards the new website hosting.

Equally, there may be sensible reasons to transfer the domain somewhere else – particularly if you want direct control over it.

What’s important is knowing who the domain is registered to, where it is registered and who has access to manage it.

Your domain is one of your business’s most important digital assets. Ideally, its registration and ownership shouldn’t become dependent on continuing to use a particular website developer.

Don’t forget about email

Email is one of the easiest things to overlook when moving a website.

Your email may use the same domain as your website while being hosted completely separately.

For example, changing the server that hosts yourbusiness.co.uk doesn’t necessarily mean that hello@yourbusiness.co.uk should move anywhere.

Before changing DNS settings, a developer should establish how the existing email is configured and which records need to remain untouched.

Otherwise a perfectly successful website migration can be followed by the slightly less successful discovery that nobody’s email works.

Not an ideal launch-day feature.

What happens to premium WordPress plugins and themes?

This depends on how the original website was built.

Some WordPress developers use their own agency or developer licences for premium themes and plugins. Those licences may cover websites only while they’re being maintained by that developer.

If you move elsewhere, the software doesn’t necessarily stop working immediately, but you may lose access to updates or support.

The new developer should therefore identify any premium software being used and establish whether new licences are required.

That’s normal and doesn’t necessarily indicate anything questionable about the original setup. It simply needs to be understood before the handover is complete.

A new developer should inspect the website before taking responsibility for it

Taking over an existing WordPress website isn’t quite the same as maintaining one you’ve built yourself.

The new developer is inheriting somebody else’s decisions.

Before agreeing to maintain it, they should ideally inspect things such as:

• the WordPress, theme and plugin versions
• the quality and suitability of the theme
• installed and inactive plugins
• custom code
• PHP compatibility
• security configuration
• backups
• user accounts
• premium licences
• website performance
• database condition
• forms and integrations
• obvious technical or maintenance problems

There may be things that need fixing before the website can sensibly be placed onto an ongoing maintenance plan.

That’s not necessarily criticism of whoever built it. WordPress websites evolve, plugins become obsolete and technical standards change.

It’s simply sensible to look under the bonnet before agreeing to service the car.

Should I take a backup before changing website provider?

Absolutely.

Before a website is migrated, hosting is cancelled or significant changes are made, there should be a complete independent backup wherever possible.

For a WordPress website, that normally means both the website files and the database.

The database is particularly important because that’s where much of the website’s content, settings and configuration are stored.

Ideally, the backup should be safely stored somewhere independent of the existing hosting account.

If anything unexpected happens during the transfer, you then have something from which the website can be restored.

What if the existing website is difficult to take over?

Occasionally, taking over an existing website isn’t the best option.

A website may use an obsolete theme, unsupported plugins, extensive custom code or an unusual setup that makes future maintenance unnecessarily difficult.

It might also have accumulated years of technical clutter.

In those situations, I would rather tell somebody that a rebuild makes more sense than take their money every month to keep an increasingly fragile website alive.

But a rebuild should be recommended because of the condition of the website, not simply because a different person originally built it.

A well-built WordPress website should be more than capable of changing provider.

What if the existing website provider is uncooperative?

Most professional handovers are straightforward.

The existing provider supplies the appropriate website information or backup, the new developer takes over, and everybody gets on with their lives.

Where there are difficulties, start by establishing exactly what you need and requesting it clearly.

That might include Administrator access, a website backup, hosting information, domain details or information about licences and third-party services.

It’s also worth separating genuine technical or security requirements from unnecessary restrictions. A provider may have legitimate procedures before releasing access or making changes, particularly where they need to establish that the request has been properly authorised.

But changing supplier is a normal part of doing business.

A website shouldn’t be deliberately made difficult to move simply because a customer has decided to use somebody else.

Who should control my website and domain?

There is a difference between managing something for a customer and controlling it on their behalf.

It’s perfectly reasonable for a web designer to manage hosting, WordPress updates, DNS and other technical services. In fact, for many businesses that’s preferable to dealing with all of it themselves.

But there should still be a clear understanding of what belongs to the customer, what services are being supplied by the developer and what would happen if the relationship ended.

This is particularly important for domain names.

Your website provider may manage your domain for you, but you should know where it’s registered, whose details it’s registered under and what the process would be if you wanted to move it.

Good website management should make your life easier – not make leaving impossible.

Can an existing WordPress website be moved without losing SEO?

Usually, yes.

Simply changing developer or hosting provider doesn’t mean starting again with Google.

If the existing domain, page URLs, content, internal links and website structure remain the same, a hosting migration shouldn’t fundamentally change what search engines see.

Problems are more likely to arise when a takeover becomes a redesign and URLs are changed or removed without appropriate redirects.

That’s why it’s important to treat taking over a website, moving its hosting and redesigning it as separate decisions.

If the existing website is performing well in search, preserving that should be part of the handover process.

Can I bring an existing WordPress website to a new provider?

Yes.

You don’t have to commission an entirely new website simply because you want somebody different to manage it.

An existing WordPress website can often be reviewed, tidied up if necessary, migrated to suitable hosting and placed under ongoing website maintenance care plan without changing how it looks or starting again.

And that’s how it should be.

A professionally built WordPress website shouldn’t hold a business permanently to the person who created it.

Developers change. Businesses change. Working relationships change.

Your website should be able to change with them.