When transferring a hosting account from another hosting provider into your reseller account, there are several changes you will want to make, and checks you should perform so that everything works as expected.
Here's a handy checklist:
- Change the cPanel Package to one of your packages, and check this does not result in loss of functionality or resources that the website may require (e.g. add-on domains, storage limits)
- Change the cPanel Contact Email to the client or yourself (depending on your preference)
- Note the IP address of the previous web hosting server and consider adding a hostname called 'oldhost' that resolves to that IP, in case you need to access it post-transfer
- Determine whether the email is hosted by cPanel or hosted remotely.
- If it's hosted remotely, check the Email Routing configuration is correctly set to Remote.
- If it's hosted by cPanel, check all email users' email settings to ensure they are using the correct incoming and outgoing server hostnames (e.g. mail.domain)
- If there's a spam filter involved, check if that is being provided by the other hosting provider (and needs to be replaced), or should be kept in place, in which case the spam filter provider may need to update their configuration
- Check if there is an SPF record in place, and if so, update it:
- Remove references to the previous hosting provider
- Add the Precedence network with include:_spf.pre.net.au
- Take this opportunity to ensure it is set to a hard fail (-all)
- Check that DKIM is configured correctly
- In cPanel go to Email Deliverability and install DKIM if it's not already installed
- Check if there is a DMARC record in place, and if so, check it is configured correctly
- Check for a TXT record on the _dmarc.domain hostname
- Check the notification addresses - if they go to the old hosting provider, they will need to be updated
- Test the website after it has been transferred
- Verify using the Network Requests panel that the website is being served from the new server and only the new server
- Check several key pages of the website
- Test a form that sends email, use cPanel's Track Delivery tool to see the email leave the server, and verify the site owner has received the test email notifications
- Instruct the client to cancel their hosting account with the old provider, after verifying that no other services are active
