Making the Switch

The safest method for deploying your new site to production is to deploy it to a different server and change your domain name’s DNS settings to point to the new server instead of the old one. That way you still have access to the old site in production in case you need something.

Deploy your site using one of the methods in Chapter 8, ​Deploying the Site​. Then, once you’ve tested the site, update your DNS settings for your domain to point to the new site. It will take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days for the DNS changes to propagate around the world. You can use WhatsMyDNS^[65] to track your DNS changes.

Once your site’s up, ensure existing links to your site work too. Search for your content on Google and follow the inbound links to ensure people can find your documents. If the links are broken, address those quickly with redirects or by altering the url field in the appropriate page’s front matter. Redeploy the site and check the links again.

When you’re confident things are completely migrated, you can back up your old site and decommission it.