by There are multiple reasons for the migration of the WordPress website to a new hosting. The poor performance of the website causes it to slow down and respond very late. Another reason for the migration can be the lack of features on the current hosting. Other possible reasons will be the hosting cost, irresponsible customer support, and poor security. The methods that are very useful for the migration are listed below:
Method 1: All-in-One-WP-Migrate plugin (Recommended)
Step 1 (Old Hosting | Original Website):
- First of all, log in to the WordPress dashboard, go to the plugins tab in the dashboard menu, then click on the add new button and download the “All-in-One-WP-Migrate” plugin.
- At the end, you need to click on the activate plugin to activate it, and the installed plugin will be accessible from the dashboard menu.
- Access the export site option and click on “EXPORT TO.” Select “FILE” to take a backup of the whole website.
- Now download the prepared file to your computer.
Step 2 (new hosting):
- Login to the cPanel of new hosting and then access the “Installatron Applications Installer” option from the software tab.
- Open Installatron Applications Installer to access the Application Browser option and select WordPress by scrolling down.
- Access the installation page from the install this application option and select a domain where you want to migrate the site.
- Consequently, you need to change the username and password and then install the new WordPress by clicking on the Install Now button.
- Then access the wp-admin from the installed WordPress link, such as new site.forevercompany.co/wp-admin/.
- Later, perform all the steps provided in step one of this method except the export site step.
- Finally, you need to select the import option from the installed plugin tab Select the “IMPORT FROM” option Click on the file, and then upload the downloaded backup.
Step 3:
- In this last step, you will be prompted with a message that says, (The import process will overwrite your website. Click on the proceed button.
- It will then start restoring the backup files of the previous WordPress to the newly installed WordPress.
- After the complete restoration, you need to save your permalink structure twice.
Method 2: UpdraftPlus Plugin
Step 1 (Old Hosting | Original Website):
- First of all, log in to the WordPress dashboard, go to the plugins tab in the dashboard menu, and then click on the add new button, and download the “UpdraftPlus” plugin.
- At the end, you need to click on the activate plugin to activate it.
- From the settings tab of the dashboard menu, you can access the UpdraftPlus Backups option for taking a backup of the whole WordPress.
- The backup data will include the database, plugins, themes, uploads, and others.
- Subsequently, you need to click on everyone individually and then on the “Download to your Computer” option to save the backup files.
Step 2 (new hosting):
- Login to the cPanel of new hosting and then access the “Installatron Applications Installer” option from the software tab.
- Open Installatron Applications Installer to access the Application Browser option and select WordPress by scrolling down.
- Access the installation page from the install this application option and select a domain where you want to migrate the site.
- Consequently, you need to change the username and password and then install the new WordPress by clicking on the Install Now button.
- Then access the wp-admin from the installed WordPress link, such as new site.forevercompany.co/wp-admin/.
- Then install the UpdraftPlus plugin by following the steps in step one.
Step 3:
- After the installation of the UpdraftPlus plugin, you can access the UpdraftPlus Backups option from the settings tab of the dashboard menu.
- You need to click on the upload backup files in the existing backups of this plugin.
- Here you will need to upload all the backup files including themes, databases, plugins, others, and uploads that you have downloaded in step one of this method.
Step 4:
- Afterward, after uploading all the backup files in the previous step, users can restore the backup files.
- That is possible by clicking on the restore button in the existing backups of the UpdraftPlus Backups option of the home tab.
- When you click on the restore button, you will be redirected to the UpdraftPlus restoration page, where you can select all the options to restore them.
- If you are displayed with the “restore successfully” message, that means the website has been backed up.
Step 5:
Now log in to your CPanel and open the phymyadmin from the database options.
Open your website database and access the wp_option table.
Replace the link of the previous site with the new one in the option_value of both siteurl and home.
Method 3: Manual Method
Step 1: Backup (Old Hosting)
- Log in to your cPanel and enter the file manager using the available file options.
- In the public_html directory, you need to create a new folder and name it as a backup.
- Copy all of the files in that folder, create a zip file of it, and then download the file.
Step 2: Exporting Databases (Old Hosting)
- For the purpose of exporting your database, you need to log in to the cPanel.
- Onwards, select the phpmyadmin option from the DATABASES category.
- Click on the database and then click on the export option from the menu bar
- Afterwards, select the SQL format before exporting the database.
Step 3: Uploading Files (New Hosting)
- Access the control panel of the new hosting.
- Then access the file manager of the control panel
- From the file manager, access the public_html directory to upload the backup.zip file using the upload option.
- Unzip the zip file now.
Step 4: Create Database (New Hosting)
Get into the Database Wizard.
Input the name of the database, and then move on to the next step.
Note all of the details, such as the database name, database user, and password, that you input during the database creation in the Database Wizard.
You will be redirected to another page where you need to enter the username and password for your database creation.
Finally, click on all the privileges for the creation of the new database.
Step 5: Migrating Database (New Hosting)
- Open phpmyadmin and find the database from the left tab that you have created from the Database Wizard.
- From the menu bar, you can access the import option to import the exported database file from the old hosting.
- After importing the database open the wp-options table and replace the siteurl and home url with the new domain name.
Step 6: Wp Configuration (New Hosting)
- Subsequently, access the public_html directory that you will find in the file manager.
- Open the wp-config file in edit mode by right-clicking on it and selecting the edit option.
- Replace the database credentials in the wp-config file now.
Step 7: Test Everything
- Now test the website. I hope it will work now.
- If you find any problem, like redirecting to the old domain, then you have to open the downloaded database in Visual Studio Code or any other editor, search for the old domain name, replace it with the new domain name, and then re-import the database by following step 5.
Still need help?
If you are still facing any issues with your WordPress Website, you can Hire Me on Fiverr or email me at: contact@ammarafzal.net