How to move a WordPress site the easy way
If you have ever tried to or even just read the instructions in the WordPress codex for how to move your WordPress site you can tell it’s not an easy task. It takes concentration, close attention to detail and it’s time consuming. If you want to avoid the headache and make your life easy follow this guide on how to move your WordPress website the easy way using the BackupBuddy Plugin. This is a premium plugin, but it will certainly save you time and headaches!
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When I discovered the BackupBuddy Plugin it quickly became my favorite plugin. It was immediately installed on all of the sites that I run and is now the first plugin that I install when developing a new site. Not only is it a great easy way to backup your site. It’s also the best plugin I know of for moving your WordPress site.
In this tutorial I will show you how to move a WordPress site that has been developed on your Mac to a domain hosted on DreamHost. The steps are basically the same no matter where you are moving your site to or from.
Here are the basic Steps:
- Make a complete backup of your site using the BackupBuddy Plugin
- Download the backup zip file and the importbuddy.php script to your computer.
- FTP or copy the complete backup zip file and importbuddy.php file from your computer to the correct folder on the new server.
- Create a new database on the MySQL server for your site in the new location.
- Go to the URL of the new location and add /importbuddy.php Follow the instructions
Let’s go thru how to move your WordPress site step by step.
The first thing to do is to download and install the Backup Buddy Plugin on the site that you want to move.
Here is a link where you can get the BackupBuddy Plugin
Once the Backup Buddy Plugin is installed follow the quick start wizard. Add your email address. This is used to report errors with the automatic back up if you activate that feature. It’s another awesome feature of BackupBuddy. Read about how to schedule backups using BackupBuddy
You will also need to create a password for the import buddy script.
If this is the first time installing and setting up BackupBuddy after finishing the Quick setup BackupBuddy will automatically create a complete back up of your site.
If you previously had installed the BackupBuddy Plugin, go to your dashboard and under BackupBuddy select backup. Next you want to create a Complete Backup. The Complete Backup will make a complete copy of all of your site files and your site’s database and puts them into one nice neat zip file.
When the backup is complete download the file. You can download the zip file by hovering over the backup that you want to download under the Local Backup tab and then selecting “download”
Next step is to download a copy of the importbuddy.php file. Under BackupBuddy in your dashboard select “Restore / Migrate” Click the Download importbuddy.php file. When you click this button a dialogue box will open up that will ask you if you want to create a new password. If you previously created a password and still remember what it is you don’t need to enter anything in here. If you don’t remember what the password you created was you can enter a new password that will be used for this file. The import buddy.php file will download to your computer.
Prepare your new host for the site
The next thing that we need to do is to prepare our new host for our site. This means that we need to upload the files to our server and create a database for our website on the new host. Login to your DreamHost panel. Then go to manage users inside the toolbox. Here you will find the username and password that you can use to login to your domains ftp. You can also create a new user here also, but that gets more complicated. If you don’t remember the password that you created you can create a new password by clicking on the edit button next to the user.
Once you have the ftp username and password it’s time to upload our files. I use the ftp program Transmit for this. I like transmit because it does what it is supposed to do and it will save the url, username and password of my connection. This makes it really easy to log back in to move files later.
In transmit click on FTP tab, if it’s not open already. Enter in the ftp address for your site. Usually ftp. followed by the name of your domain.
Enter in your user name and password then hit connect.
Open up the folder for the domain that you want to move your site to. Make sure that there are no other files in this folder
Then move the zip file and the importbuddy.php file from your downloads folder on your mac into the folder for your domain on your server.
Create a database for your site
With that done now we need to create a new database for your site. Go back to your DreamHost panel. In the Toolbox select “MySQL Databases”
In the MySQL panel you will need to great a new database and a new database user. Scroll down on the MySQL Databases page until you get to the section that says, “Create a new MySQL database:” Here enter in a new name for the database that you will use for you site. You can really make it pretty much anything that you want as durring the import of the site you will enter this information in to the ImportBuddy Script.
Next under “Use Hostname”drop down select: “Create a new host name now” Create a name that is mysql. then select the domain name of your site. Under First User create a new unique user name and password. After you have the mysql server name, created a new database and written down the username and password for our database we are ready to unpack and load our site on our domain. Go to yourdomain/importbuddy.php to start unpacking and configuring your site on the new host.
On the first page enter in the password that you created for your importbuddy script.
On the next page select the file that you wish to load. You should only have one file here. You might have multiple files if you were using this script to restore a previous backup. But in this case we are moving a site so we only have one file to choose from. Click the “next step button”
Your files will unzip. Once that is completed click “Next Step”
This takes you to the URL & Database Settings page. Verify the the URL matches the domain that you are moving your site to, so this should already show the domain that you are moving your site to.
In the database settings enter in the information that we gathered from the DreamHost MySql page.
Click the “Test Database Settings”Button. All of the tests should pass. If they do not check the information that you entered in the Database Settings section. Click the “Next Step”Button. The Database will get unpacked and put into its new home on the new hosts server.
On the next and final page you will find a link to your site:
Click on the link to be taken to your site. Click around on your site and make sure everything is there. If your site loads the home page, you are most likely free and clear.
After checking that your site loads correctly go back to the importbuddy page and Click on the “Clean up & Remove Temporary Files Button”
You have now finished moving your site.
There is just one more thing that you should check. If your site is all ready make sure that you allow search engines to index your site.
In the dashboard under settings / reading / check the box to allow search engines to index our site.
Get the BackupBuddy Plugin
Read about how to schedule backups of your site using BackupBuddy
