Here are the detailed steps how to successfully move a complete WordPress installation from one host to another.

There are two ways to accomplish this, either you migrate the site manually or using a WordPress Plugin.

Since there are many WordPress Plugins available that assist in a site migration we will only focus on the manual method.

Backing up WordPress from your OLD host: Backup your whole home directory from your ftp access using an ftp client like WS_FTP.

Make a folder on your local harddisk and download the complete directory to that local folder.

Backup your mysql database on your old host using phpmyadmin, select your mysql database, usually something like “wp_dbname”.

Select all fields, click “export” and save the database to your local harddisk.

Leave default options enabled. You will receive a file similar to “wp_dbname”. This is your mysql database

Migrating WordPress to your NEW host: You can install WordPress through your Customer Control Panel

Click the Applications Tab, then WordPress, select the domain you want to install this on, then click Install.

Once WordPress is installed you will need to upload your folder with the complete WordPress installation to your application’s htdocs directory.

The next step is to import the database (which you exported from the old host earlier) with phpMyAdmin to the new database. This might take a minute.

The last step is that you will need to edit the wp-config.php file with the new database, location, username and password.

Depending on what system your on you will also want to double check your .htaccess or web.config file  to make sure no other changes are necessary.

In addition we offer Professional Services in which given sufficient access we can move the WordPress site for you.