B&T Solutions
Moving a live business site without a bad day
B&T Solutions run a working WordPress site and a separate forms application their visitors use every day. Both had to move onto hosting B&T own, with nothing breaking in front of a customer.
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Where it started
The site lived on someone else's hosting, with a forms application at /onlineforms that people submitted every day. The job was to bring all of it onto a server B&T own and can log into, with no stretch where a page was down or a form stopped sending.
What the move changed
We did more than move the files across. Once it was on the new server, we cleared out what had been making it slow and fragile. We had permission to do that work, so we did it.
Before
- Hosted on an account B&T did not control
- A plugin was blocking WordPress and plugin updates
- Roughly 18 MB of dead files and duplicate code, including one that let code run from a page widget
- The hero video had no set size, so the page jumped as it loaded
- Contact and careers forms threw errors and were slow to load
After
- Hosted on a server registered to B&T, with their own logins
- WordPress and every plugin updated, with the update block removed
- The dead files removed and the code-execution hole closed
- The video given a fixed size, so the layout holds as it loads
- The forms fixed, with their fonts and scripts served from the site itself
How we kept it safe
Every change went onto a private copy of the site first, so it could be tried before it was real. Before the switch, 19 pages were checked one by one, on a desktop screen and on a phone, so the layout held on both.
Where it landed
The site and the forms now run on hosting B&T own. The move happened with no visible outage, and the forms kept working through it. The page also loads faster than it did, because the weight that was slowing it down is gone.
What changed
- The site and the forms run on hosting the client owns and can log into.
- Every change was tried on a private copy before it went live.
- 19 pages were checked on desktop and phone before the switch.
- About 18 MB of dead code was removed, including a security hole.