Moving a site: How to do it?

I've got an existing vBSEO-equipped site and I'm thinking about changing my webhosting service. At the moment, I have made a copy of the production site, including database, on the proposed host. This experimental site is behind a passworded screen and not publicly available. If things go as planned, I will update the experimental site with current data and redirect the DNS to make the experimental site into the production one.

Above the vBulletin directory, the new host's directory structure is not the same as the old, so full paths are different.

The new host is running PHP 5.0.45, and provides mysqli. I've verified that the RewriteEngine is on in Apache.

I don't want the experimental site to interfere with production. Is there anything in the SEO plugin or Sitemap that I should disable to avoid conflicts?

Any other answers to questions I should have asked will be gratefully accepted as well.

Thanks,
Ned

Is it possible to do a seamless move of servers?

Thanks, Brian, a good procedure for moving day. I will be using it in future.

What I'm doing isn't moving--yet. It's intended to be a temporary, private clone of the production site, using a snapshot of the database. Perhaps most important when we're talking about vBSEO, the test site must not have the same domain name, because that would interfere with the production site.

Is there anything in the SEO plugin or Sitemap that I should disable to avoid conflicts or trouble?

Ned

If you're looking to set up a test site first, i wouldn't even bother enabling vbseo or the sitemap at all. as long as mod_rewrite is working, it will work. everything else just replies on vb's options/settings.