Sometimes due to certain limitations of your current web host, you may have to make the hard decision to move your WordPress blog to a new web host that suits you. Moving a WordPress blog to a new host without any hiccups is not that difficult. Just follow these simple steps:
Upgrade your WordPress: This is necessary only if you are using a very old version because the latest versions have more security and features.
Backup your WordPress Database: There are two ways to do this. One is using a beautiful plugin called WP-DB-Backup that allows you to easily backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.
After installing and activating WP-DB-Backup plugin, click the “Backup” link on the Tools menu. On the following page select the tables you want to backup. If you are unsure, just select all the tables. Next under Backup Options select “Download to your computer” and click the “Backup now” button. WP-DB-Backup plugin will start to backup your database and allow you to download a backup file in the .sql.gz format.
The second way to backup your database is via phpMyAdmin. Login to your web host and go to phpMyAdmin, select “Databases” and click on the database that holds your WordPress data. The next page will show all the tables inside your WordPress database. You may have more tables if there are any plugins installed.
Next click the “Export” tab on the top set of tabs.
Check the “Structure” box, “Add DROP TABLE” box, “Add AUTO_INCREMENT value” box, “Enclose table and field names with backquotes” box, “Data” box and the “Save as File” box.
Check the “None” or “Zipped” for compression and hit the “Go” button. You should be prompted for a file to download. Save the file to your computer.
One thing to note is that if you have a large blog, you may need to export each table individually so they can be imported to the new host with greater ease and fewer time out errors.
Backup your WordPress Folders: Don’t forget to backup your “wp-content” folder that contains your uploaded files and images, plugins, and themes files. In addition, you have to backup your robot.txt, wp-config.php and .htaccess files. Also backup other personal files that are not a part of your WordPress blog like images, downloads etc. that you wish to transfer to the new host. Use Filezilla FTP software to download the above files and folders to your computer.
Change your domain name servers (DNS) information and install WordPress: Change the name servers of your domain to the name servers provided by your new web hosting company via your domain registrars control panel (not the web hosting control panel). Usually it takes up to 24 hours for the DNS to get updated. After your DNS information is updated, you should be able to login to your new web host using FTP software. Next you should install a fresh copy of WordPress on your new web host. You can either do this manually or use Fantastico or other scripts by logging into your new web hosts’ control panel. If you decide to do it manually and keep the same “wp-config.php” file that you backed up previously, then you would have to create a database using the same database name, database password and same database user name.
Upload your WordPress folders and files: Now upload and overwrite the previously backed up “wp-content” folder and its content using your preferred FTP program to your newly installed WordPress directory. This will ensure that all the previously used plugins and theme is ready to be used.
Import and restore you WordPress database: Now it is time to import your backed up database to your newly installed WordPress database. To do this login to your new web hosts’ control panel and go to “phpMyAdmin”, select “Databases” and click on the new WordPress database name. A list of all of the tables contained in the database will be shown. Click on “Check all” to select all the tables then select the “Drop” option. Confirm to delete them permanently.
Now that the database for wordpress is empty, we have to import the backed up wordpress database file. To do this click the “Import” tab on the top set of tabs. Browse to the location of the backup and click on “Go”. Wait for the upload process to finish.
Once the every thing is done, browse your site to see if it’s functioning as expected.
