Procedure for transfer of WordPress site

  • Resolved melange

    (@melange)


    10 years, 2 months ago

    I’ve read some tutorials on transferring a WordPress site to another host, but I’m still confused about some of the steps for doing that in my situation.

    I’m transferring my WP site from DreamHost to Arvixe hosting, and I plan for the domain name to remain the same. I do not want to transfer the DNS records until the website transfer is done and verified to work properly, to prevent extended downtime. So I am working off a temporary URL that Arvixe assigned to me, which is an IP address.

    From what I gather there are these 3 steps for transfer:
    1) Transfer website files over into the root folder of my public_html directory.
    2) Export my WordPress DB from my old site. Then in my new site, create a DB and use import.
    3) Edit the wp-config.php file to reflect the new DB name, user, and password.

    Is this correct? Do the steps have to be done in order?

    I also have two questions:
    1) Do I need to run a WordPress install on my new site before doing any of those steps? Or by transferring the files and importing the DB, I have already done what is necessary to get WordPress up and running?
    2) How do I know what the MySQL password is? Looking at my wp-config.php for my old site, I see a password that I have never set by myself, but somehow it still works.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • The steps you have listed are correct.

    To answer your questions:

    1) Do I need to run a WordPress install on my new site before doing any of those steps? Or by transferring the files and importing the DB, I have already done what is necessary to get WordPress up and running?

    If you follow the steps you listed, you will not need to run a new WordPress install on Arvixe.

    2) How do I know what the MySQL password is? Looking at my wp-config.php for my old site, I see a password that I have never set by myself, but somehow it still works.

    When you create the new database on Arvixe, you’ll also have to create a user with full permissions on that database. Part of that process includes setting up a password for that user. Use this new user id in wp-config.php

    Thread Starter melange

    (@melange)

    Thanks, Matt! I’ll give it a try now and see how it goes.

    Thread Starter melange

    (@melange)

    I did all of the above. The transfer seems to be okay, except all the permalinks still link me back to my old site. I think this is because of the siteURL set in the wp options DB table, is that correct?

    Should I just go ahead and transfer the DNS at this point and it should work fine?

    Yes, that is correct, you’re getting sent back to the old site because the site & home URL in the options table is still set to your existing domain.

    You should be OK to transfer DNS now.

    Did you get this resolved, if not, we can assist you ??

    Thread Starter melange

    (@melange)

    Sorry it took so long for me to follow up, forgot about this thread. Yes, it worked perfectly thanks!

    Great to hear!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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