Domain Name Migation + HTTPS?

[ThreeShips]

One of our clients is considering migrating their domain name _and _changing protocol (http to https), as well as changing hosting providers, at the same time.

Is it fine to make the changes at the same time, or would you recommend 'phasing' the migration?

[BlueCorona]

Hi ThreeShips!

I agree with Vetty. If migrating to a new domain AND to HTTPs, I would recommend doing this in phases. It's the safest way to do this without causing a major problem with the site. If something with the migration were to go wrong, it will be much easier to spot and correct the problem than if you did both migrations at the same time.

[Vettyy]

Phase it to ensure every aspect of this migration is accounted for meticulously. A new domain move is always risky and then adding an additional redirect to the mix will make it messy and hard to keep track of.

You could potentially do the below:

Organise the redirect list and make sure every url is accounted for from the domain you're redirecting (I'm sure this is already done)
Change hosting providers first so you can manage and work on everything under the one account.
Add a 301 redirect script for the new domain to automatically redirect http to https 
Then redirect the old domain urls to the new https domain to avoid the additional redirect to the http

This would avoid the typical chain "http://olddomain.com > http://newdomain.com > https://newdomain.com" and instead just have "http://olddomain.com > https://newdomain.com"

Up to you how the process is done, but I would definitely phase migration.