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If you have ever wanted to move your Wordpress blog to another host because you have sold it or just wanted a better hosting provider, you may have been put off by not knowing how to do it.
In this tutorial we are going to show you exactly how to do it in 5 easy steps:
1. Download Your Wordpress Files
2. Download Your Database
3. Change The DNS Servers On The Domain Name
4. Create A New MySQL Database And Import The SQL File
5. Upload Your Wordpress Files
So let’s begin with the first step:
Step #1 – Download Your Wordpress Files
This is a very easy step. First you want to create an empty folder on your desktop and name it so that you can remember it. The easiest thing to do is name it after your blog. Next you will login to your Wordpress installation using an FTP program and download all the files and folders to that empty folder:
Step #2 – Download Your Database
Your database has all the information about your blog – the posts, the settings, the users etc. So we need to download it in the correct way. Login to your cPanel of your web host and click on the Fantastico icon:
Next click on the MySQL icon:
You will then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the phpMyAdmin link. This brings us to our databases. Click on the database for your blog, this would normally be called wrdp1. Then click on the Export tab:
Then you just need to scroll down, click on Save as file and then click Go. You don’t need to change any other settings. Save the file to your folder on the desktop that contains the Wordpress files you have just downloaded.
Step #3 - Change The DNS Servers On The Domain Name
This is an easy step. Once you have completed the steps above, you would now login to your domain name host and change the DNS servers so that they point towards the new host. It may take up to 24 hours for them to propagate correctly.
Step #4 - Create A New MySQL Database And Import The SQL File
Once the domain name is pointing towards our new host, we can set up the blog. So first we will create a new MySQL database and import the SQL file that we downloaded from our previous installation.
So again, login to the new cPanel and click on the MySQL link. There will be no databases there, so we need to create one.
First we open up the wp-config.php file from the folder on our desktop and note down the database name, username and password from the previous install:
Then we use the database name to create a new database:
Next we need to add a user, so again we use the same username and password from our wp-config.php file to create a new user:
Finally we must now add the new user to the database and give them all privileges, so choose the database you have just created, then the user your have just created and add them to the database with all privileges:
So now we have our new database set up, we need to add all our information from our blog. To do that we will import the SQL file.
Still in the MySQL section, scroll to the bottom and click on phpMyAdmin. Then choose the database from the left hand side. Then we click on Import and browse to the location of our SQL file in the folder on our desktop:
And click Go.
In just a few seconds you will get a message saying that it has been imported successfully.
Step #5 - Upload Your Wordpress Files
The last step is to upload all the files and folders from your desktop to the new web host.
So using an FTP program, login to the new host, select all the files and folders on the left hand side and upload all of them into the public_html section of the new host.
Once the files have finished uploading, visit the website in your browser and you should see the working blog.
Simple!
