There are many reasons you may want to move your WordPress site be it your moving from your development server to a live server , you may want to move to a cheaper or better host.
There are many reason that you may want to do this so in Part One of moving Wordpress I want to discuss moving a site using plugins now Im well aware that You can do this manually but to be honest from past experience when the plugin system works its by far faster to process a move using one of the 3 bellow plugins.
The first Two I have first had experience in and have found them quite useful the 3rd I have not tried so I can only make a passing comment on this but the first two would be my main picks for this form of moving a site in part of Moving WordPress I will go into how to move your site manually.
Bearing in mind that there are a few servers such as fasthosts and others such as godaddy that these plugins wont work on for share hosting most of the time on any host this is due to restriction placed by them on there servers which Is supposed to be for security reasons in most cases when managed correctly this is not the case
Duplicator (free)
duplicator offers a three step move process. once the plugin is installed you will find a link to the management page with in your plugins list
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
its normally good practice to start by checking the compatibility of your servers bellow is a image of what this may look like, check out more information on at this link Duplicator
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
once you are stasified with this go ahead and create your first package. Packages are the contents of your database and files, all wrapped up in one. Click the create button in the top right, after you have clicked create the system will go to work on createing a package you can view the log if you wish.
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
There are advanced options under the settings panel where you can email yourself when the package is completed you can choose to exclude some directories and file extensions and pre-populate the installer fields .
once you have created your package you will want to upload both the installer and package to your new site via ftp the installer does exactly what it says on the tin it installs your existing site to your new server duplicator tries its best to replicate your entire set up for you from databases to WordPress files- the first time I used this software I installed WordPress before using it only latter to realise that I did not to install WordPress to my new server the system had done it all for me.
once you have uploaded the package and the installer and navigated your browser to the location of your installer.php file on the new domain you will find your self and a screen similar to the one bellow
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
all you need to add is the DB access details; Duplicator can create the individual tables, you will still require a mysql user and database set up for it to use. check the db conection and accept the disclaimer now your ready to install.
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
the system even allows for the optional reactivation of certain plugins
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
Finally you will need to select options for rewriting your permalinks and deleting the installer (make sure you remove this once you are done as it can leave a major security loop hold in your site if you leave it there.
I have read reviews on this plugins its a mixed bag to be honest some have no problems others are not so lucky, when moving a site to be honest I have had a mixed experience of this plugin some times it has been a quick and simple system to use and others it has been something that has taken me hours to complete leaving me in a position where my client is unhappy or I am just frustrated a couple of times this was due to the host I was using others it was just bad luck.
I would say its a good plugin when it works but does require some technical knowledge so not for beginners.
Backup Buddy (Premium, from $80)
the process of backing up and restoring a WordPress site is not a millions miles away from the migration process so I was not surprised when I first came across back up buddy that the system also allowed for site migration this plugin in my experience is a joy to use yet again dependant on if your host supports it properly I have recently had a client who was with fast hosts shared hosting and as said before there system does not allow for the use of back up buddy . all you need to do with back up buddy is follow there rather simple setup process on the settings page
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
before you can move your site you will need to create a back up choose the complete back up option and begin this will create a complete back up of your site and its database once done here go to the restore/migrate area, and select automated restore/migration. Hover over the latest backup and an option to “migrate this backup” should appear.
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
you now need to setup a new target where the back up is to be sent to you can adde ftp details and confirm they are working using this should the send over your files to your new server there are other options but this seems the simplest
From this point the process is almost identical to duplicator you can chose a manual install option which will offer a “importdubby.php ” and back up file to download seems familiar with this option you would then upload the files via ftp to the new server during the process you enter your DB details the system will finally clean up by removing the install files no muss no fuss I say.
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
backupbuddys migration process is very similar to that of duplicator so compared purely as a paid for and free plugin Duplicator wins out to be honest in my experience I have used duplicator on at least 3 sites and backupbuddy the same and I have found that backup buddy produces less errors and needs less trouble shooting as a rule. however don’t forget with back up buddy you also have access to the backup functionality of the plugin. if you just want a system that will allow for migration go for duplicator but it can be frustrating to use.
WordPress Move (Free)
Ive used this plugin before but had very little luck with it at all it is yet again a free plugin
when installed, WordPress Move adds a Migration Assistant link under the Tools sub-menu. It present 3 options:
- Change domain (no files will be moved)
- migrate
- Restore
if you are using migrate, you need to configure the plugin from the settings sub-menu. this involves adding FTP access details for the new site.
You also need to have WordPress and wpmove installed on your new server to migrate your site using this both duplicator and backupbuddy do this for you so I was a little disappointed
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
once you have done the process of installing Wordpress and WPmove to your new server you will need to head back to the old site to being the process Type your ftp password, new domain name, and press start migration when I did this I experienced a error I tried a lot of things to get this to work but had no luck after several tries I just gave up as I think i had been sat there for nearly 30 mins getting errors
Image taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/
all images on this post were taken from http://www.makeuseof.com/ who’s post about ,migration plugins first lead to my use of duplicator and wp move I have only recently purchased a copy of backup buddy and have used it ever since and had no problems thank you to James Bruce for his post .
Coming soon Part Two manually moving WordPress
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