This just works!

Well, with so many options available, including from my new host, I was unsure which to pick.

EDIT: I’ve now moved several small/medium sites in just an hour or two (all of them) and everything has been faultless. I’m super pleased ??

My new host’s migration tool was unable – it seems – to cope with logging into my WP backend, perhaps because I have manually changed the default login url from my.domain/WP-admin?

So, I used this tool which relies on ftp for hosts that don’t work directly with it (they provide a list). You can you cPanel too, but that’s increasing unavailable these days (they charge per site now, so it’s unattractive unless you need nerdy stuff).

You load the plug-in using your WP dashboard at the location from which you will migrate the website. It gets cloned, leaving the website unaltered at the donating host. You then run the plug-in using the info it asks for.

It was easy (you’ll need to be confident with ftp login details is all). The ftp part is used by the plug-in to gain access to where your website will be stored on new host. Having cloned your website from the donating host using your WP dashboard and then gained access to your new host via ftp, the site is uploaded there.

It was quick too – about 10 minutes all in for a 0.9Gb site.

Oh, and it’s free. Hard to believe why anybody would use another plugin. Except, of course, you have a need to ship your site from or via ‘localhost’ (you own computer’s hard drive), in which case this just won’t work (it ships your site to its own servers (blogVault in fact) and then ships it suitably adjusted (you need to know what that means however you migrate a website) to your new host.

If your domain is hosted by a different host to the one you are migrating to (most commonly at the host you are moving from, but not always) you must then either move the domain to the new host. Or you must ensure the nameservers for the host looking after your domain point to the host to which you have moved your website (if that sounds confusing, I apologise, but is important to understand the difference between hosts, domains and websites and how they work together if you plan to manually migrate a website, otherwise it will seem baffling).

Lastly, you’ll need to know the correct folder address on your host (drive address for the website) which is usually ‘/public_html’ wherever you have instructed your host to locate files for the domain you are migrating (look up what that means too if you don’t know).

• This topic was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by coolcmsc. Reason: Now used several times