WordPress is the most popular Content Management System out there for bloggers. It has millions of users and has an active community developing themes as well as plugins. WordPress is famous and is favoured by 90% people in the blogging field. This is because WordPress is easy to use, versatile and highly customisable using themes and plugins.
WordPress is written in the famous server scripting language, PHP and this makes it easy for development. WordPress is favoured over the Blogger platform because of being customisable. However, in the case of WordPress, the website needs to be on a hosting.
In the life of a blogger, there surely will come a time when he/she needs to move a WordPress blog from one hosting to another. This is the technical part of using WordPress, and most bloggers end up hiring people for doing it. These tech experts then give them a huge bill for the simple task that is migration.
This is why we have written this post, in this pos,t you will find three methods to migrate a WordPress blog from one hosting to another without errors. Before attempting any of these methods, take a backup using any WordPress backup plugin. Moreover, go ahead and install WordPress on the new host before migration. You can ask the support of your hosting on how to install WordPress if you do not know how to do that or just ask Google.
1. WordPress Import Feature
This is the simplest way to migrate a blog. Here we are making use of the option that is inbuilt inside WordPress. WordPress developers have integrated this feature to make migrations easier.
Login to your existing WordPress dashboard. Go to the tools tab and choose export. Now choose the “All content” option and hit Download. An XML file will now be downloaded.
Now head over to your new WordPress installation in the new hosting. Go to the tools tab and choose import. Click on the WordPress importer plugin and install that plugin.
Click on the Activate Plugin & Run Importer on the next screen. This will take you to the WordPress importer. Choose the XML file you have downloaded and then click on “Upload file and Import”. On the next screen assign users to the imported content. Now tick the option that says “Download and import file attachments”, it is important that you do that.
Click on Submit Button and you are done. This does have disadvantages since you will need to reinstall and configure all of your plugins and themes. That is a hectic job, this is why recommend you do one of the next two methods.
2. UpdraftPlus Plugin
This is a quick and efficient method and will migrate your site completely and without errors.
Search for and install the UpdraftPlus plugin. It is a free plugin, and the free version is enough for our task. Once installed, click on the settings tab and connect a cloud storage with the plugin. We recommend you connect your dropbox account, as the process is easy. Just the follow the instructions on the screen.
The backup you create will be sent to this remote storage location so that you can restore easily. Now click on the “Backup Now” button and make sure that you choose all the tickboxes. Press “Backup Now” once more to start the process. You can see the progress in the plugin page.
Now all you need to do is go to the second WordPress installation, install Updraftplus plugin, connect the same dropbox account, click on restore button and choose the latest backup.
Once restoration gets finished, reload the page, and you can see that your old blog is back.
Keep UpdraftPlus installed and backup your website in frequent interval.
3. Manual Method
This is by far the toughest method but has a success rate of 100%. If all else fails, try this.
Basically, the core of a WordPress installation is a MySQL database and some php files. These php files come with every installation. So if you could move both the MySQL database as well as the theme, plugins and media files, you effectively migrate your WordPress blog. This is the manual method.
In Order to do this, you need access to your server. Here I’ll explain, how it’s done in a Cpanel enabled hosting.
First of all, login to your old hosting cpanel and choose the file manager option. Inside the WordPress installation directory, you will find a folder named as wp-content. This file has all your themes, plugins and media files. Zip all the contents of this folder and download it to your computer. The Cpanel file manager has the option to compress as well as decompress.
Now head over to the same directory in the new hosting, upload this zip file and extract it. Make sure you replace all the existing files.
The file migration part is done, next we need to migrate the database. For this purpose, we will be making use of PhpMyAdmin, a tool used to interact with databases.
Open the PhpMyAdmin from the cpanel. Select your WordPress database, choose export option and click GO.An SQL file will now be downloaded. Keep this in a safe place, this has all your posts and other settings. It is a very important file, and anyone with this file can create a clone of your blog.
Now, go to your new hosting, and choose PhpMyAdmin.There will be a WordPress database. Select all of the tables in it using the select all checkbox in the bottom. Now there will be an action dropbox. Choose “Drop” and click go. This will empty the database.
Now, on the import tab, upload your SQL file that you downloaded and go. Once that completes importing, your migration is complete.
Conclusion
See, WordPress migration is that easy. Make sure you point your domain correctly after the migration to complete the process. Hope you will try any one of these instead of paying hard earned dollars to a freelancer.
Guest article written by: Heya. I am Pranav Rajput, Blogger from Jammu, India. I am a 17-year-old teen who loves Technology, Entrepreneurship and Marketing 🙂 Check my blog https://hitechweirdo.com/