How to transfer a blog from host to host.
It’s really simple, but take it slow.
I first have to give props to Katy, she went above and beyond here, so this by no means is a cut to her.
Over the past couple years I have purchased 50+ websites, and now 3 Blogs. It’s kind of like my little hobby, buying them, trying and turning them around and see if I can get them to grow. Some do, some don’t. Before the blog revolution, it was simple, a domain name, and some content and your have a site. Now with blogs there is a lot more that goes into the transfer of a blog than many might thing. As this is rather a huge topic, I’m going to break it up into 3 parts, well here is the first piece.
Hosting
Probably the biggest thing involved. While the current owner has found a suitable web hosting company for their site, you have probably found another hosting company to host you site, while this doesn’t inherently cause a problem, choosing to move the site does. As the move requires some time to make sure you are ready to move the site, and if you have all of the necessary backups needed.
When choosing to move your blog from one hosting company to another, you need to especially make sure that you have a current backup of your blog, to do this you must login to your cpanel, through your hosting company, and follow the simple instructions listed below:
You may have several databases. Click the one that holds your WordPress data, the database you created when you installed WordPress.
This shows only default tables. You may have more tables — this would happen if you have any statistics plugins or anti-spam plugins.
- Select ONLY those that hold your WordPress site.
- Check the “Add DROP TABLE” box.
- Check the “Complete inserts” box.
- Check the “Save as File” box
- Check the “None” for compression. If your database is very large use a compression method.
- Click Go. The data will now be saved into your computer.
Keep these files safe !
No this part will take a while depending upon how large or small your database is, once youe done you will hae your entire database in a nice and neat Notepad file. Once you are ready to beging installing the file to the new location siply follow the following steps. (this is much easier)
- Login to phpMyAdmin.
- Select the database you wish to use.
- On the navigation bar on the top select “SQL” (besides Export, Structure, Search, Query… etc.)
- You should now be presented with a little page which allows you to run SQL query/queries on the database – Either by inputting the query/queries to the input box or by locating a text file on your computer.
- You now have 2 options: 1) Paste the SQL which you backed up earlier in the “Input Box” and click “Go” or 2) If you saved the file on your PC then use the option below the first one; Click Browse > Locate the File > Click “Go”. (Note: Most servers set a “Max File Size” for uploading the SQL, the size appears beside the Browse button.)\
- It may take sometime for the file to be uploaded and fully run, so give it a chance! Once it worked, it will bring you back to the same page and should confirm if all went well “Your SQL-query has been executed successfully: The content of your file has been inserted.”Congratulations! If all went well, you have successfully restored your backed up database!
Now if your sql file happens to be larger than 10MB you will most likely need to use SSH in order to transfer the database. Here is how to do this.
Note: Some hosts do not offer SSH access, I suggest contacting your host and asking them if SSH access is enabled and if so the details. I had to fax a copy of my drivers license in order to get access to SSH it only took a min to fax it over and once it was received I had access. . A good program to use for connecting via SSH is PuTTY (Get it at: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html.) Don’t know how to use it? Search on Google for a tutorial.
Connect to your host via SSH, login & run: mysql -u user -p dbname < {path}/backup.sql
You will be asked to type out your password once you run that command, do so & click enter. It may take some time for it to respond, but once completed you should be brought back to where you started (bash/command line).Congratulations! You have successfully restored your database using SSH.
Hopefully i covered everything you will need, in the next part I will out line the essential items needed to complete the transfer.
I believe I have covered everything? Anything I missed? Comments or suggestions? Just let me know! Hope this tutorial was as useful to you as it is to me!
October 14th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Christoph, for people who can’t get to their phpMyAdmin, you can also use the wp-backup plugin to do a download of the tables.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
@Christopher Ross: You make an excellent point, I had thought to mention it, but felt like i was getting a bit wordy as it was. But the WordPress Backup plugin is a great way to go even if you have phpMyadmin.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:00 am
ha, only just noticed this, i will give it a read. I can feel your frustration.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Ah heck, being as non-techie as I am, i just go to my host and say please :-)
I’ll save this for future reference though ;)
October 15th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Did you forgot to change the nameserver in your domain name? HAHAHA. Nice guide by the way.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
@Hussein: Very Funny, I hope it never happen to you. I forgot the transfer all the WordPress plugins, and the theme over, so that took some time.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:51 am
I’m surprised to see a new owner here. But nevertheless, I’d congratulate you Christoph for the purchase. And you got a very timely post. In six months, I’ll transfer my hosting. I’ll remember this.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
This is a very comprehensive post, I love the step-by-step and screenshots! Thanks!
October 20th, 2008 at 12:37 am
To the new owner Best wishes :)
October 20th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Good information, it was worth reading. Keep up the good work on your posts, I will keep checking back for more posts like this one. If you want checkout my site as well.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Good work.I love the step-by-step and screen shots!. I will keep checking for some more blogs, Keep Posting.Best Wishes.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Thanks for the guide. My hosting company’s servers have been down quite frequently lately and I am think of switching hosts.
Steve
October 28th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I am also having trouble with the hosting of my blog.. because they I got it for free and they deactivated my blog just recently.. but still I can mange to log in.. the problem is when you try to open my homepage a message will appear that it was deactivated…
I am planning to switch to a new hosting I just need to have enough money for it… thanks for the wonderful information… it really helps me alot….
October 29th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Thanks for this info.
This is good for newbies like me..
October 31st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
[...] How to transfer a blog from host to host [...]
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I found very much useful stuff over here and it is great to come across this blog.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I always hate selling one of my blogs because transferring it to another person always comes with problems. I always run my blogs on IIS (Windows) and moving to Apache ain’t the simplest thing.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I wish I had found this post before, as I just finished moving my blog over to http://www.idowebmarketing.com. Would have been helpful to read this post first:)
December 10th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Great tips man. This will be really helpful for me to gather traffic. I am subscribing to your posts right away.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
If you’re already using cPanel, there’s an easy and fairly automated way of backing up and importing sites and databases without having to use phpmyadmin
December 18th, 2008 at 6:19 am
thanks 4 the info. never did quite catch phpMyAdmin, but killed WordPress ;)
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
loved the post. a real helpful one. thanks for this.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Complete tutorial. But for people who doesn’t have access to phpMyAdmin, you can also use the wp-backup plugin to do a download of the tables. or use export from wp dasboard, and we will get xml file, then import it. I think it fast and easy solutions.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:54 am
I like the way of presenting the article with a diagrammatic representation of pictures that are collected. As I am new to the topic it takes some time to understand and get implement it.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
This is really helpful for me because I have been thinking about switching from Bluehost to Hostgator (Bluehost seems to go down a lot for me) and have been wondering how I will be transferring the sites without having trouble. Thanks for the help with this.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
It’s Funny(no pun intended) you say bluehost goes down, i’ve never had it go down on any of my sites. Knock on Wood!
March 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Thanks for this great tutorial.