How to Move Your Wordpress Site

Now, we're going to save a copy of the old site's database to your desktop (it's good to keep a copy of this somewhere else too - in case something goes horribly wrong!) In order to copy the database, get into your old site's account on the server via cPanel, WMHx or whatever other interface you have:

1. Find the area for "phpMyAdmin" and click it.


2. On the left hand column, click the name of your database (it's usually "_mydatabase") so that it's selected. The number in parenthesis signifies how many tables the database has in it.


3. Click the "Export" tab in phpMyAdmin. In the "Export" section near the upper left hand side, click "Select All" so that everything in the box is highlighted.


4. Make sure that the "SQL" radio button is selected as an option underneath that (it's usually selected by default).


5. Everything else can be left as-is, since the defaults don't need to be changed.


6. Lastly, the "Save as file" option at the very bottom of the screen should be checked. For "compression," choose "none." You can rename the file in the provided box called "file name template," or you can simply right click/rename the file once it's on your computer. Regardless, click the "Go" button on the far bottom right, and save the file to your desktop.

Remember the brand new database you created when you installed a fresh copy of Wordpress within the new directory? I called it "mysite_newdatabase" before. Let's go into that database through phpMyAdmin. Log into it as explained above, but choose that new database's name on the left hand column. Now, it's time to import the old files into that new database:

1. Make sure that the new database is selected on the left hand column within the drop-down box, and that it has a (0) next to it, signifying that it is empty.


2. Click the "import" tab, and click the browse button to locate the old database .sql file that we saved to your desktop before.


3. Click the "Go" button. You should now see a message that says:

Import has been successfully finished, 12 queries executed.

It's pretty self-explanatory: simply edit these old URLs and replace them with the new site's URL. I've found that there are usually only two cases where this has to be edited:

• "option id 1: siteurl" (it's usually on the 1st page)
• "option id 40: home" (it's usually on the 2nd page)

Don't let this title scare you...next up is replacing the old URL, which is found in every single Wordpress post. Don't worry though, you can get this done in about 15 seconds...I promise! Click your database name on the left hand column, once again. When the full list of database fields appears, look for "wp-posts" and click it.

You're looking at a list of every single post on your Wordpress site. If you scroll the screen to the right a little bit, you'll see a column called "guid" which lists the URL of every individual Wordpress post. You'll also notice that they're all referencing the old website, and all of them need to be edited!

Click the "SQL" tab at the top of the screen, and you'll find a section entitled "Run SQL query/queries on database." Select and copy the text inside of this box and delete it, then copy and paste the following directly into that box:

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = REPLACE (
guid,
'http://www.oldsite.com',
'http://www.newsite.com');

Open your wp-config.php file for the new site, and edit the database name, database username and database user password so that they reflect the correct settings of the new site's database.

• If you're moving Wordpress to a new folder within the existing domain name:
  ...just remember that you're running a Wordpress installation within a new folder. So, it will have it's own wp-config.php file which only governs the Wordpress installation running inside of that folder!

Almost there! Now, it's time to do one more simple but necessary step: open the .htaccess file and make sure that it's referencing the correct URLs. This file is found in your root directory, just locate it through your FTP program, save it to your desktop, and open it in Notepad or Wordpad.

All you have to do here is check to make sure that it is referencing the new address where your new site will be found. A common mistake is to move a website, then visit it only to see a 404 error:

Not Found
The requested URL [whatever the old URL is] was not found on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

The really frustrating part is when you've done everything, only to see an error message on the live site. Unfortunately, there's no way to pinpoint what the problem is. Use some logic, though: if the error seems to be database related, make sure you go back into phpMyAdmin and ensure that all traces of the old URL are no longer referenced in the database (click the "search" tab and type in the old URL...anything that pops up as a result should be edited).

Most problems are database ones when it comes to a site move. Otherwise, it may be related to your .htaccess file referencing the old URL, or an improper setting in your Wordpress admin panel.