Latest posts by D. Dixon (see all)
- 10 Lifesaving Steps To Moving Your WordPress Blog To Your New Webhost - February 13, 2013
- 5 Valuable KPIs of Facebook Ads - November 26, 2012
- 3 Ways Facebook Ads Help With Exposure - October 3, 2012
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Migrating a WordPress blog is a very delicate operation where things can go VERY wrong. Thanks to my difficult migration, I learned a few lessons that helped me get through.
I thought moving my WordPress blogs would take me about six to eight hours at most but that was not to be. My experience was incredibly difficult thanks in total to my ISP. Despite that and with the help of some fantastic tech support reps, my blogs were successfully moved to their new home. Here are 10 steps that helped me keep some of my sanity during the process:
1. Decide when you’ll initiate the migration
If you have a blog that has a lot of traffic, you will need to plan for potential downtime. As you know more about your WordPress blog than anyone, you are the best person to decide when is the best time to make your move to your new webhost.
2. Test your FTP login
As a blogger and site owner, an FTP client, like FileZilla or CuteFTP should be a staple in your software arsenal. One of the things you want to do is to test your FTP login with the new webhost. I did his and found that I was receiving an error message when I tried to access my FTP site.
3. Download new emails
This is something that I forgot to do before my migration so I most likely lost some emails. Like some, I use MS Outlook to get email. What I didn’t do but should have done was to download new emails into Outlook ahead of time so that I minimize the chance of losing messages that come in during the migration. Once your start moving your WordPress blog to the new webhost, you will no longer have access to the old host’s mail server; that’s why it’s good to do ahead of time.
4. Use a plugin to backup your WordPress blog
The idea of moving each file one by one was not appealing and I needed a way to get this done quickly. Thanks to some great advice, I found a free WordPress plugin called BackWPup that not only backed up my blogs but really saved my sanity during a critical moment
5. Test the backup
Once
6. Create a new Database in your cPanel’s phpMyAdmin
This is where things get a little technical, so bear with me. If you’re going to moving an existing WordPress blog to a new host, you need to create a blank database in phpMyAdmin and import the table from your existing SQL database into that blank database. This is absolutely necessary if you want your blog to work at all.
7. Change your nameservers to the new host
Once you’ve tested and made sure everything is working, you change your nameservers to the new host. This means going back to the place where you bought your domain name and changing the ns1 and ns2 fields to the new webhost. If you don’t have these new nameservers, ask your webhost. This process takes about 4 hours to complete for each site so you have no choice but to wait.
8. Check to make sure your WordPress Blog is pointing to the right URL
When I moved by blogs, I was unable to get the login screen. So I had to go into the phpMyAdmin to modify two fields in my database table that were pointing to the test site and not the main url. Once I did that, I was able to login and get into my blog.
9. Create your Email accounts
Once everything was done, I still had to login and create my webmail accounts. I did this and then configured my Outlook to retrieve mail from the server. If you don’t have the addresses for your incoming and outgoing mail servers, ask your webhost. It’s also a good idea to configure your client to keep a copy of your messages on the server just in case you have problems with your mail client.
10. One important last step…Breathe
After 44 hours of what I thought would take eight, I realized that I was actually holding my breath. Once I made sure I was able to log into WordPress admin and get my emails, I actually breathed.
Moving your blogs to a new webhost is not an easy task but it does take some organization. Things can go wrong so it’s important to have great technical support staff who’s able to help you whenever and however you need it.
You can read more about my experience of moving my WordPress blogs to my new webhost and how I survived the curve balls.
Twitter: winsonyeung
Beside upgrading to a better server, I also shift my DNS to the CloudFlare which is a cloud server that helps to block bad request as well. It helps to enhance the security, improve website loading speed and also save bandwidth all for at no cost.
Twitter: SMARTSocMed
I had been told about CloudFlare so that is an awesome feature. You are definitely ready for anything, Winson!
Yes, this is definitely a process! Especially changing to a new domain. Great tutorial. I was looking for a good tutorial I can send someone a link to.
Twitter: SMARTSocMed
Hi Bill,
Glad to hear that you think these steps are valuable enough to share. I’m honored. I hope your friend remembers that the last step is extremely important
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Twitter: musicianmakers7
Thanks for the tips! I wish I read this earlier. I tried moving one of my sites to another webhost and somewhere along the way I totally screwed up. Worst thing about that was that I didn’t even save a backup.
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Twitter: keralpatel
Another good tip is to back it all up and still ask for a professional help. If you don’t know what you are doing then losing everything for some dollars is not worth it. And yes I always close my previous hosting account 15 days later when my new one is up and running.
Twitter: SMARTSocMed
Believe me, when it comes to my blog, I ask for help. I find no shame and it helps me to get another perspective as well. Thanks for that tip, Keral!
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Twitter: Techblowup
Thanks for this step by step tutorial steps. We should take care of all the points. Nice post thanks for sharing this info.
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Twitter: SMARTSocMed
Hi Prakash,
THanks for taking the time to comment. I learned a lot from this experience and I wholeheartedly agree.
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Hey Dixon,
Nice post and Thanks for sharing these step by step tutorial for moving wordpress blog. Yes, creating backup is most important part when we moving wordpress blog. I will surely apply these all points whenever I move my wordpress blog to new webhost.
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