How to Migrate Your Wordpress Site to Another Server

To avoid missing content or settings error for your site, I advise you to do some check list of your site. It is not necessary but you will got a big problem if you try to move lot of content, plugins and, theme's settings. Create it in notepad or whatever application you comfortable to use.
1. Post
Make sure you have the list of your post. It give some guideline about what and when you post your content.

2. Pages
If your WordPress site have Contact Me, About Me or, fill in the blank, its not really different from post. If you know how to set your post I consider you know how to set your page.

3. Plugins
To make your WordPress more interacted with your needs, make sure you have list of plugins and don't forget to keep it's settings too.

4. Permalink Structure
Permalink is the URL of your each post. By the time your links crawled and index by search engine such as Google or Yahoo, you just waste your time and effor to start your new indexing process. Below are some example :
- Your post URL : yourdomain.com/date/post-title
- Your new post URL : yourdomain.com/date/post-title
Let your permalink stucture like the previous one.

5. Images Folder
There where all your image file located. Don't let your post missing it's file image.

6. Theme Settings
In case you use your same theme, this step is very important for you.

Follow these steps.
1. Login to your current Cpanel account.

2. On the right side of your admin area page, you will find (from the top) Preferences, Mail, Files, and so on..

3. On File section, please click "Backup" image (Hard Disk Drive icon).

4. You will redirect to Backup page. Inside of the page you'll see "Download or Generate a Full Website Backup".

5. Fill your email and click "Generate Backup".

6. Now your server will generate full of backup and you'll get notifications to your email if your request has been generated. It tooks about 30 minutes or less based on your webhosting services.

Every domain name setting panel different from others. In this case I use my panel from Namecheap.com. What you going to do is, login to your new webhosting account or Domain Name Registrar, and find something similar like below information:

"Specify Custom DNS Servers ( Your Own DNS Servers)
1._________________________________________
2._________________________________________
3._________________________________________
4._________________________________________ "

Your new webhosting server provider will give some information about your new account. Please check your email and find something like this:
DNS.yournewaccount.net ( it just an example). You'll receive two DNS information and just fill it to #1 and #2 space. Click update or save ( depends on your panel).

I'm going to show you how to install WordPress based on auto installations and, manual installations.
1. Auto-Installer
i) Login to your new Cpanel account, find "Software/Services" and click the smiley icon there, I mean Fantastico De Luxe.

ii) On the left sidebar, you will see "Blogs" and I'm really sure you will find "WordPress". Click it.

iii) Click "New Installation" and fill everything there. Click "Install WordPress" then click "Finish Installation".

iv) In case you forget your new WordPress information, put your email there and click "Send Email".

2. Manual Installation
i) Login to your Cpanel account. Find "Databases" and click "MySQL Database Wizard".

ii) You will redirect to Step 1. Fill your new database name inside the box. Your database name will included your Cpanel username. Example: yourcpanelusername_databasename. Click "Next Step" button.

iii) Every database must have a user. On step 2, create Username, Password, Password Again, then click "Create User" button.

iv) On this step, tick "ALL PRIVILEGES" then click "Next Step" button. Make sure you keep your:
- Database name
- Database user
- User's password

v) Download WordPress installer HERE.

vi) Extract all files from WordPress installer and upload to /public_html/ directory using any FTP client software. FTP client software list you may use:
- FileZilla
- Coreftp
- Smartftp

vii) Open your WordPress site and you should see page begin with this text " There doesn't seem to be a wp-config.php file. I need.....". Now click the "Create a Configuration File" button.

viii) Read carefully about what "the installer" tells you then click the "Let's Go" button.

ix) Fill all the information:
- Database Name - Your created database name.
- User Name - Your database user name.
- Password - Your database user password.
- Database Host - Don't change it. Keep it as "localhost"
- Table Prefix - Don't change it. Keep it as "wp_"
Click the "Submit" button.

x) Click the "Run the Install" button".

xi) Fill the Information Needed:
- Site Title - your site title.
- Username - username for your WordPress admin area.
- Password, twice - password for your WordPress admin area.
- Your E-mail - WordPress will send your site information to this e-mail.
- Privacy - tick it.
Click the "Install WordPress" button.

xii) Success! you don't have to login at this time.

Do these steps to your site.

i) Extract your backup file and find "mysql" folder. Explore that folder and find your database backup. Your database backup file name should be like this "yourdatabase_name.sql".

ii) Login to your Cpanel account, and find "Database" then click "PhpMyAdmin".

iii) On the left side, you will see "Information Schema", "yourcpanelusername" and under it you'll see "_yourdatabasename". Click it.

iv) Find and click "Import" on the top menu. Browse your "yourdatabase_name.sql" file then click "Go" button. If your importing process success you'll see this text "Import has been successfully finished.........."

v) Now open your WordPress site and you should get your all post from your previous site.

You gonna get a problem if you didn't restore your directory. Every post will losing it's image file. So let us do this process. I suggest you to restore only these file:
i) All plugins
ii) All images files
iii) Your theme.

Follow these steps:
i) Open your extracted backup folder. Find "homedir.tar" file. Extract that file.

ii) Open that folder and find your file as I suggest to you.

iii) Upload your all files to your directory based on it's previous location.

iv) At this stage you should get your all images file.

This process will be the final touch up for your WordPress site. Do these based on your setting list that I mention you.

i) Plugin setting
ii) Theme setting
iii) Permalink Structure setting

Once you finished that, you're success to move your WordPress site to other server.