How to migrate a WordPress website?

There are many reasons that may lead you to migrate a Wordpress website one day:

• your sites are developed locally and then you wish to place them on your server,
• you want to change host for technical or personal reasons,
• you create sites on your server and then need to migrate them to your clients’ servers,
• etc.

The list can be long! Anyway, performing a Wordpress migration can be a real headache for the uninitiated. Especially since the stakes are high: not to lose your work during the process!

To help you in this process, we suggest you study two solutions:

1. An automated solution with an example plugin: Migrate Guru
2. A manual alternative for the most geeks who like to get their hands dirty!

Migrate your website in a few clicks with Migrate Guru!

Step 1: Install the Migrate Guru plugin from the administration interface of your source WordPress

1. To do this, search for “Migrate Guru” in the “Extensions” section of your menu

2. Install and activate the plugin

Step 2: install WordPress on the target website

If Netim is your hosting company, you can launch the pre-installation of the WordPress plugin when ordering your hosting.
If your host doesn’t allow it, go to our article: Steps to create a WordPress website to find out what to do!

Step 3: open Migrate Guru

You will need to enter your email address, which will allow the plugin to inform you of the start and end of the migration.
Then start the Wordpress migration by clicking on the “Migrate Site” button.

Step 4: select the host for your target website

Only the largest hosts (mostly American) are listed here. If you can’t find your target host, don’t panic! You can use the FTP option.

You will be asked to provide a few details:

• the destination site URL
• the protocol (FTP, SFTP, FTPS)
• the destination server address
• the FTP username
• the FTP password
• the folder where your target WordPress files have been saved

If you keep the same domain name, you will also need to complete the advanced options:

• the IP address of the new hosting
• the primary nameserver provided by your hosting company

Step 5: start the migration!

All you have to do is start the Wordpress migration and wait for the procedure to be completed!

The time may vary depending on your transfer speed and the volume of each site, in general this solution is known to be relatively fast.

When the migration is complete, you will receive an email notification to inform you that the website is on your new hosting.

Do your migration manually in 4 steps!

Step 1: migration of your WordPress website files

1. Connect to your current host using FTP software
   You will need the following information:
   – Host
   – FTP username
   – FTP password
   – Port
2. Export your WordPress website files
   On the right-hand side of your software, you will see all the files on your current host’s server. Select all of these files and copy them to the right (local) side. Now do the same thing in reverse, copy the files on the local side to your new hosting.
   
   
3. Login to your new host using the updated information:
   – Host
   – FTP username
   – FTP password
   – Port

Step 2: export and import the database and create user profiles

1. Login to phpMyAdmin at your current hosting provider
2. Export your database in SQL format
   You now have your database export. To enable the import of this file, you will now need to create a database and a user on your new hosting.
3. Create a database by logging into the administration interface of your new host
   
   At Netim, this functionality is available from Netim Direct:
   – Go to the “Hosting services” section
   – Then “Shared hosting management”
   – And finally, in the “Services management” menu, click on “Database users” and fill in the name you wish to give to this database
   
4. You must also create a user at your new host, otherwise your database will not work
   
   At Netim, this functionality is available from Netim Direct:
   – Go to the “Hosting services” section
   – Then “Administration and services”
   – And finally, click on “Database Users” and create the user profile you want
   
5. Your new hosting is now ready for your database export
   Login to phpMyAdmin at your new hosting, click on import and select the relevant file.

Step 3: reconfigure your website

Now that your database and files are up to date with your new host, all you have to do is modify the configuration of your website.

Why? To allow your new hosting company to know where the database information is located. The information to be modified is located in a text file, at Netim this is the wp-config.php file.

1. Open your FTP client and look for the file wp-config.php
2. Open this file and edit the following fields:
   – DB_HOST: with the name of the database server
   – DB_NAME: the name of the database
   – DB_USER: the name of the user associated with this database
   – DB_PASSWORD: the password defined for the user
3. Your website is now using the right database and can function fully.

Step 4: point the domain name to the new servers

Last but not least… you must also make sure that the nameservers associated with your domain name are correctly set up and point to Netim’s servers.