We’re moving the WordPress/WooCommerce store from the Hayati Vape domain to the new Hydra domain, updating the store branding and carrying across the catalogue, customer records, order history and trading. This page is the brief and the working checklist: what happens, in what order, and the evidence that proves each stage is safe before the next one starts.
Hydra is a fresh domain, so there’s no separate staging site — the store loads directly onto the domain it will launch on. That saves a second migration. Select each stage to see what happens, why, and what has to be true before moving on.
The backup is the recovery point for the whole store. The export is a readable reference for checking product content and recovering supported fields. The baseline separates pre-existing issues from migration defects.
A standard CSV is not a complete backup of the store, and backups holding customer data must never sit in a public folder.
Working on the final domain is faster and avoids moving the site a second time after testing. The holding page lets us review layouts, links, branding and the purchase journey privately.
The new store will fall behind the live one from this point — which is why stage 04 exists.
Products and pages can share database tables, so selecting tables alone may not protect product records. The comparison and readback are the evidence; an export and reimport alone can’t guarantee it.
The Hayati Vape store keeps trading the whole time the Hydra store is being prepared. Setting up directly on the final domain doesn’t remove the need to bring that activity across.
This is the only stage customers see. Everything before it exists so that this one is uneventful.
Two different changes are happening, and they must be kept apart: the domain URL update and the wording change from “Hayati Vape” to “Hydra”. Apply the rebrand below to see which references move and which are protected.
Examples by context — not a find-and-replace list.
Categories and editorial content that discuss genuine Hayati products. Some references there are the store; some are the product. Each is a judgement call, not a pattern match.
Copied WordPress settings don’t make an external service ready for a new domain. Before the move, inventory every integration — its purpose, account owner, domain restrictions, where credentials live and the test it needs — then reconnect and verify each one. Credentials are shared securely, never written into a brief.
Product mapping, stock direction, sync schedules and duplicate prevention.
Gateways, return URLs, webhooks, callbacks, refunds and payment-to-order status updates.
Warehouse/3PL connections, labels, couriers and tracking updates.
SMTP or email API, sender domain and authentication, order emails, password resets, CRM and marketing integrations.
Activate or transfer domain-bound licences; confirm updates, premium features and service quotas.
Scheduled jobs, WooCommerce action queues, server cron, API jobs, feeds, backups and failure alerts.
Check the background queues and both sides of each key integration, and disable duplicate jobs on the old installation when switching. A complete transaction test is the evidence that the business can operate on Hydra.
Tick items off as they’re done. Owners are shown where the brief assigns one: the developer handles hosting, DNS, email, licences, reconnections, testing, redirects and launch; SearchFlex handles the transfer, the redirect list and the old domain’s authority; Vapehub approves customer-facing messages.
The holding page comes down only when every condition below is true. Tick them as they’re proven.
Monitor orders, payments, email, errors and redirects closely. Name who investigates issues and who can authorise a rollback.
Review crawl coverage, indexing and traffic. Redirects reduce disruption but can’t guarantee unchanged rankings, so performance is watched, not assumed.
Keep the old domain and working redirects live — longer while useful traffic and links remain.
Confirmed name, registrar access and DNS control.
Including who investigates issues and who can authorise rollback.
Who runs the transfer, and how hosting, DNS and admin access are shared.
Use the existing plugin if suitable; agree the format before we prepare the list.
Host-managed transfers and manual FTP/SFTP with a separate database move are both options. We recommend All-in-One WP Migration because it moves files and database together and rewrites domain URLs automatically — less manual database work and fewer SEO fixes afterwards, which leaves more time for the audit and rebrand. We can supply Pro; licence, hosting and storage compatibility to be confirmed. Data sync, audits, redirects and external-service checks still apply.
Once the open items above are agreed, stage 01 starts: backups, exports and a baseline crawl, with the evidence supplied before anything moves.