This post demonstrates how to migrate a WordPress website from one web hosting server to another.
Migration refers to moving websites from one web server to another due to various reasons such as increased load on an existing server, slow speed of the website, increasing cost of hosting plans, etc.
A website migration is performed after taking a full backup of the source code and database from the web hosting account. To migrate a WordPress website, there are softwares such as Softaculous and Duplicator Migration Plugin for WordPress that help in performing backups and migrations in an easy way.
Free web hosting accounts offer very limited features on their servers, e.g., upload file size limits, slow upload speeds, restrictions on compressed files, missing unzip options in file managers, etc. Hence, backups created by the above-mentioned software are difficult to use while performing the migration activity. Hence, it is always recommended to register for a paid hosting account for faster and more reliable web development.
WordPress.org officially recommends Managed WordPress Hosting plans from web hosting providers such as BlueHost and SiteGround, that include tools for easy migration and caching activities. For the plans available with these service providers, follow the links in the menu above.
Here is the video to learn How to Migrate a WordPress Website to New Web Hosting Server
Here are the steps shown in video
Step 1: Login to the cPanel of the website for which migration is planned. In the video, the website http://mywebsite123.ga is migrated from the InfinityFree server to the AwardSpace free web hosting server. To learn how to create a WordPress website, follow the previous post How to Create a Self Hosted WordPress Website.
Step 2: In the cPanel, go to the Files section and click on the free FTP Software. As shown in the video, download a suitable FileZilla FTP client for your OS. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for facilitating file transfers between clients and servers. FileZilla provides FTP client software that makes the FTP process easy.
Step 3: To know the credentials for FTP on the server, click on FTP Accounts in cPanel, provide FTP Host, Username & Password details in the FileZilla client, and click on Quickconnect. Download all the files from the server to upload to the new server. Make sure all the files are downloaded properly.
Step 4: To take the database backup, click on the DATABASE section and click on the phpMyAdmin link. In phpMyAdmin, select the database for which you want to take the backup and click on the export tab. In the export tab, click on the Go button and save the database backup to the hard drive.
Step 5: Here, an AwardSpace account is created to demonstrate the process of migration. Click on the Domain Manager to host your website domain. Here, mywebsite123.ga is provided in Host a Domain field. After hosting a domain, it is required to update the nameservers in the Domain Registrar to point your domain to the hosting server. Hence, AwardSpace nameservers are updated in the Freenom account.
Step 6: Now open the File Manager from the AwardSpace dashboard or click on open files in the Hosted Domain field. In the File Manager, a folder with the domain name mywebsite123.ga is created where all the files for this hosted domain will be uploaded. In other service providers, if you have directly created your account after providing a domain name at SignUp, then this folder is similar to the /home/www/public_html folder.
Step 7: From the Dashboard, click on the FTP Manager and copy the FTP credentials of the AwardSpace server. Provide these details in FileZilla FTP Client and click on Quickconnect. Drag all the downloaded files from the InfinityFree server to the mywebsite123.ga folder on AwardSpace. This will start the file transfer process. Make sure all the files are uploaded properly to the AwardSpace server.
Step 8: In between the file transfer process, open the Database Manager from the dashboard and click on Create MySQL Database. Provide the name and password for the new database, and click on the Create Database button. This will create a database for your website. Now open phpMyAdmin from MySQL databases or from the AwardSpace Dashboard.
Step 9: In phpMyAdmin, select the newly created database and click on the import tab to import the database backup from the InfinityFree server. Browse the database backup from the hard drive and click on the Go button to start the import process. After a successful import of the database, refresh the database to view all the tables.
Step 10: After a successful transfer of all the files to the new server, open File Manager from the Dashboard and open the mywebsite123.ga folder. Right-click on the wp-config.php file and open the file in edit mode. Provide details of the new database, such as the database name (DB_NAME), database user (DB_USER), database password (DB_PASSWORD), and database host (DB_HOST), to establish a database connection with web pages. Click on the Save button to save changes in the wp-config.php file.
Here, the migration of website mywebsite123.ga to the new server is complete. Now access the website just migrated on the browser.
Thanks for visiting. For queries and suggestions, emails are welcome at learnweb@hostingcolumn.com.
Subscribe to Hosting Column for latest updates and posts.