If you’ve chosen to migrate your WordPress website from hosting another account or WordPress.com, you may be concerned about losing your website or any of the associated information. However, once you have backed up your database and made a copy of your WordPress files, transferring your WordPress site is a quick and easy task to perform. The migration will be supported by us at every step of the way.
Migrate from Another Host
Backup your WordPress Database
Log into your database WordPress site currently is and select the WordPress table.
Select ‘Export‘ from the top navigation menu.
Select ‘Quick‘.
Select ‘Go‘ button. This action will prompt the export to start downloading via your web browser – you may be prompted to save this file depending on your web browser type. Depending on the size of your database, this may take a few minutes to start.
Your database should now be downloaded.
Back up your WordPress files using FTP
Open your preferred FTP program and connect it to where your current WordPress site is. Locate the directory for your WordPress installation – this could be either in the public_html folder or named in it’s own directory depending on how it was installed.
Once located, right mouse click on the holding folder and select ‘Download‘ – if you do not have a download option, mouse click and drag to a local folder on your computer.
Depending on the size of your directory, this may take a few minute to complete.
Create a new database for WordPress
Log into your cPanel with us. If you are unsure on how to do this, please view the following help article – ‘How to log into cPanel‘.
Under the ‘Databases‘ title, click onto ‘MySQL Database Wizard‘.
Write in a ‘Database Name‘.
Select ‘Next Step‘ button to continue.
Write in:
- Username: – username for the database user.
- Password: – password for the database user.
- Password (Again): – repeat of the password.
At this stage it is recommended that you note down your database name, the database username and password because this will be needed later for the WordPress config.
Select ‘Create User‘ button to proceed.
Select ‘All Privileges‘.
Select ‘Next Step‘ to complete.
Your new database has now been created.
Import your WordPress database
Whilst still logged into your cPanel account with us, under the ‘Databases‘ title, click onto ‘phpMyAdmin‘.
Choose the new database that was created from the left hand side of phpMyAdmin.
Select ‘Import‘ from the top navigation menu.
Select the ‘Choose File..‘ button and locate the database file that was downloaded earlier on your computer.
Select the ‘Go‘ button to import.
Your WordPress database has now been imported.
Upload your WordPress files via FTP
Open your FTP program and locate the quick connect option- this example uses FileZilla.
At this stage you will need to know your login details for the FTP – this information can be found in your welcome email from us titled ‘New Account Information’.
- Host – your domain name (without the www)
- Username – your cPanel username
- Password – your cPanel password
- Port – by default this will be 21
Once your information has been entered, click ‘Quickconnect‘.
Once connected, your FTP program will provide on screen confirmation. You can now start exploring your hosting directory, by clicking ‘+’ and ‘-‘ to expand and collapse the folders.
Locate your WordPress files that were downloaded earlier (the files within the folder downloaded) and upload them into the ‘public_html’ directory. This process may take a few minutes depending on the size of the files.
Your WordPress files should now be uploaded.
Edit the WordPress config file
Whilst connected to your hosting via FTP, navigate to the directory where your WordPress files are. Browse through the files list and locate a filed called ‘wp-config.php‘.
Right mouse click on this file and select ‘View/Edit‘.
You will need to change the database connection details to the new database that we created earlier.
At the top of the document, you will see three important configuration settings listed under the heading ‘MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host‘.
// ** MySQL settings ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'cPanelName_databaseName');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'cPanelName_databaseUserName');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'databasePassword');
Please replace the information with your respective account details / database name, username and password.
Select ‘File‘ followed by ‘Save‘.
Once the changes have been saved, you may disconnected from the FTP program.
Your WordPress blog should now work. However if you are experiencing problems, please contact support. Log into your ‘Client Area‘ and select ‘Open Ticket’ from the navigation menu.
Migrate from WordPress.com
You can now migrate your WordPress website if it is hosted with WordPress.com by following the export and import below steps.
Export WordPress
From your existing WordPress host, you can create a full export. This will store all of your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories and tags into one XML file that will be downloaded onto your machine.
To create the export, log into your existing WordPress host. From the left hand side menu, mouse over ‘Tools‘ and select ‘Export‘.
Choose the option to export ‘All content‘. Proceed by then choosing ‘Download Export File‘ at the bottom of the page.
You should now see a download initiate with all of your important WordPress information.
The file is now ready to import to your new host.
Import WordPress
If you haven’t already installed WordPress with your new host, please see ‘How to install WordPress‘.
Once WordPress is available on your new host, log into the WordPress admin panel. From the left hand side menu, mouse over ‘Tools‘ and select ‘Import‘.
The import section gives you the ability to import data from many types of website software. Choose ‘WordPress‘ from the list.
You will now need to install WordPress Importer onto your website in order to import your WordPress website. Choose the ‘Install Now‘ option.
Once the software has been downloaded and installed, active it by selecting the ‘Activate Plugin & Run Importer‘ option.
Select the ‘Choose File‘ button to open a new window where you can browse your file system. Navigate to the folder where the exported XML file was downloaded to from earlier and double click it to open.
Choose ‘Upload file and import‘ to start the import. Depending on how big your export file is, the process may take a few minutes to complete, but once done, your WordPress website information with your old host should now be copied on your new host account.
The export and import process is complete. Please note – this process does not copy WordPress themes or plugins. Themes and plugins would need to be installed again.
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