The Way I Transfer My WordPress Blog To Another Host

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OMG! I did it. I was very nervous in the beginning as this was the first time I attempted to transfer this blog which was hosted in another subdomain to a brand new current domain and a new host. I did google to find the guide to do the transfer but none really convinced me to D-I-Y except one Cormac Morlan’s How to transfer your WordPress blog from one host to another host.

Well, the fact that I could just fresh install the WordPress into my new domain and redo everything, I decided to take the risk and experience first hand the transfer process. Using Cormac’s method, this blog is transferred painlessly and successfully. So I thought I should share in simple terms how I did the transfer myself in 5 steps.

So here’s the process..

1. Export (back up) your WordPress database

There are many way you could back up your WP database, for the purpose of this how-to, I would highlight the use of phpMyAdmin to do the task. If you are unsure what phpMyAdmin is. It is a web-based admin area for you to manage your database. Usually found under ‘Databases‘ section when you go to your domain cpanel - www.domain.com/cpanel.

Once you have successfully login to the phpMyAdmin, click on the name of your WP database. You would by now see the top navigation tab. Click on the Export button and tick the following as instructed by Cormac:

• click on ’select all’ and ‘SQL’ from the Export menu
• select ‘add Drop Table’, ‘add Auto_Increment value’ and ‘enclosure table and field names with blackquotes’ from the Structure menu
• select ‘Complete inserts’ and ‘Use hexadecimal for binary files’ from Data
• you can leave all the other values at their defaults

Once done, choose Save as file and this will save and download your WP database .sql file to your desktop.

2. Create a new WordPress database

When you are done with the above, go back to your cpanel and click on the MySQL Databases. Creating a new database can be done in 3 simple steps:

2.1 Choose the name of the new database and click Create Database

2.2 Add New User. This is self-explanatory. Create a new username and password.

2.3 Add User To Database. Assign the user to the new database created in step 2.1.

3. Edit wp-config.php

Important: This is extremely important. You need to edit the file to change the old database configuration to the one you just created in step 2. The step is required to instruct WordPress to access to your MySQL database you define.

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');    // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');     // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password

4. Download & upload ALL WordPress files & folders

This is pretty straightforward if you know how to use any of the FTP software for upload and download. So for the sake of simplicity, I would not elaborate more here as I assume you already know how to FTP those files. Just remember that you need to upload ALL your WP files & folders including those plugins and themes folders to your new directory.

5. Import (upload) the previously backup database

Here's the easy part. Since you already know how to Export via phpMyAdmin. You just need to reverse the process by choosing the Import to upload your .sql file and you are done.

That's it.

By now you should have successfully transfer your WordPress blog to a new host. Just like I did it.

Here I would like to stress the point that I am not an expert but I'm sharing this as a goodwill. Therefore if you encounter any problem during your migration, you can refer to Corman Morlan's site for reference and further reading or WordPress Support Forum for assistance.

If you do transfer your WordPress blog using the above guide, please do drop me a line on the comment section and tell me whether the above step is applicable to you. On a side note, I would like also to know if there is an alternative better way for me to do the migration or have I missed any point here?