Migrating a WordPress Site from Bluehost to Getwebup

Bluehost migrations catch people off guard for a different reason than GoDaddy or Hostinger moves do: the files and database are almost always sitting in a normal cPanel account, but Bluehost's own dashboard, caching layer, and staging tool hide that fact behind a custom skin. Here's how to get a Bluehost WordPress site onto Getwebup cleanly, without losing mail or a day of rankings.

Why Bluehost migrations need their own playbook

Bluehost runs on cPanel under the hood for its shared, WordPress, and VPS plans — but the marketing dashboard you log into by default doesn't show it. You have to go looking for it, and two Bluehost-specific things trip people up along the way:

• Bluehost's built-in caching (Endurance Cache / Varnish on some plans). It rewrites pages aggressively enough that a straight file copy sometimes drags cached HTML along with it, so the "old" version of a page reappears on the new host until you clear it out.
• The Bluehost staging tool. If you ever used "Staging" from the My Sites panel, there may be a second WordPress install sharing table prefixes or a similar database name. Migrate the wrong one and you'll ship stale content.

Sort those two out first, and the rest of the move is a normal cPanel-to-cPanel migration.

Step 1 — Find your real access

Log in to Bluehost, then look for Advanced in the left sidebar (older accounts may just show a "cPanel" tile on the home screen). That opens the actual cPanel interface — File Manager, phpMyAdmin, and a proper FTP/SFTP account, exactly like any other host.

If you're on one of Bluehost's fully managed WordPress plans and don't see an Advanced/cPanel option at all, you'll need the plugin route instead:

1. From WP Admin, install All-in-One WP Migration or Duplicator.
2. Run an export — this bundles the files, database, and uploads into a single archive.
3. Download it locally before you do anything else. Don't rely on Bluehost's own backup manager for this; those backups aren't portable off Bluehost.

Step 2 — Clear Bluehost's cache before you export

If you have the WP Rocket or Bluehost's own caching plugin active (check Plugins for "Bluehost" or "Endurance Cache Manager"), purge it before exporting files. Otherwise you can end up copying a cached, out-of-date HTML snapshot into wp-content/cache that briefly serves stale pages on the new server until WordPress rebuilds it.

wp cache flush
wp transient delete --all

Run those over SSH/Terminal if you have WP-CLI available on Bluehost; otherwise just deactivate the caching plugin from wp-admin before you zip up public_html.

Step 3 — Export files and database

With cPanel access:

• File Manager → select public_html (or the subfolder your site lives in if Bluehost installed it under a folder) → Compress → download the zip.
• phpMyAdmin → select your database → Export → Quick → SQL format → Go.

Double-check the database name against wp-config.php first — Bluehost sometimes leaves an old staging database sitting alongside the live one with a near-identical name, and it's easy to export the wrong one.

Step 4 — Import into Getwebup and test before touching DNS

Upload the archive to your Getwebup hosting account, extract it, create a matching database, and import the SQL file through phpMyAdmin. Before you go anywhere near DNS, preview the site on the new server using a hosts file entry so you're testing against the real domain name:

# Linux/macOS: /etc/hosts
# Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
203.0.113.10   yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

Browse the whole site with that entry in place — check forms, WooCommerce checkout if you run a store, and any hardcoded Bluehost URLs in menus or widgets. If wp-config.php or the wp_options table still references the old database host or a Bluehost-specific constant, fix those now, not after cutover.

Step 5 — Migrate email without a mail outage

Bluehost bundles email two different ways depending on the plan: its own webmail (cPanel-based) or a Google Workspace add-on. Check which one you're on before assuming anything:

Either way, copy the current MX, SPF, and DKIM records into Getwebup's DNS zone before you switch anything, so there's no gap where mail has nowhere to land.

Step 6 — Point DNS at Getwebup

Once the site checks out clean on the hosts-file preview and email records are staged, either update the A record to Getwebup's IP or switch nameservers entirely. Updating just the A record is the lower-risk option if Bluehost is also your registrar — it avoids touching anything else in the zone while DNS propagates.

Keep the Bluehost account active for at least a week after cutover. Some resolvers cache records past their TTL, and a live fallback means visitors hitting stale DNS still see a working site instead of an error page.

Common mistakes on this specific move

• Forgetting the staging site. Migrating public_html/staging instead of the live install because the folder names look similar.
• Skipping the cache purge. Bluehost's caching can make a broken migration look fine in a quick glance, then serve stale pages an hour later once the cache expires.
• Cancelling Bluehost immediately. There's no way back to check something you missed if you cancel same-day.
• Not checking for a Bluehost-specific SSL. If Bluehost issued a free SSL through their own integration, it won't follow the site — order a new certificate on Getwebup (AutoSSL handles this automatically) before you flip DNS, not after.

Prevention: keep the next migration boring

Once you're settled on Getwebup, take a full cPanel backup before making major changes, and avoid host-specific caching plugins in favor of something portable like WP Super Cache or a server-level cache you control. It makes any future move — to Getwebup or away from it — a plain file-and-database copy instead of a scavenger hunt through vendor-specific tooling.