So…I’ve had a several requests on how to move a WordPress installation to a new server, so I decided to make a post about it and show you how to do it. This is going to be a lengthy post, but if you will follow the directions you will have no issues moving your site.

First off, there are many methods on how to do this, but the one I will walk you through is how I do it and it works for me, so here goes.

The first thing you will want to do is log into your existing server via FTP and locate your WordPress installation. There you will locate the “wp-content” directory and back it up to your local machine (PC/Mac, whatever)…just download it to your machine so that you have it for later.

After you have done that, then you will want to log into your SQL database. You can do this through your hosting control panel (CPanel, etc). Once in your database, you will want to export it. Locate the “Export” button for your database…it should look like this: (note: your database might not look exactly like this as I have other tables in place)

After you click “Export” you will see a screen that looks similar to this:

Make sure to “Select All” and that you have “SQL” selected as the export type. Then to the right, you want to check the boxes that say “Add Drop Table” and “Add If Not Exists”. What that does is make it so that if the tables already exist on your new server, it will overwrite them when you import your existing database there. We actually won’t do that with this demonstration, but it’s always a good idea to do so, just in case. After that, you will check the box toward the bottom that says “Save as File” and then click the “Go” button in bottom right. This will produce a download and you need to save that to your machine as well.

So at this point, we have our “wp-content” folder and the database backed up. That is everything you need from your existing site.

Next, you will go to your new server and set up a completely new WordPress installation. Once you have done that, log into the new site via FTP and locate the WordPress installation and find the “wp-content” directory for the new installation. You can do a copy/replace here, but what I always do, just to be safe is to delete that directory completely and then upload the one that you backed up earlier. So to recap here…delete the “wp-content” directory on new installation. Then upload the “wp-content” directory that you backed up earlier into the new WordPress installation.

Once you have done that, then you will want to log into the database for the new WordPress installation. When you get there you will want to check ALL of the existing tables and then choose to “Drop” them (there should be 10 tables on a default installation). That screen should look something like this:

After selecting “Drop” you will be prompted with a screen that looks like this:

You will select “Yes” to this action and all of the database tables will be deleted.

Next, you will want to import your database that you backed up earlier. So you will find the “Import” button up top:

After doing that, you will be prompted to “Browse” and find the SQL file you want to import. So click “Browse” and find the SQL file that you saved from your old site earlier. Click “Go” and that will import your database.

After the database has been imported, you will see all of the tables that were on your old site in the left column. What we want to do now is tell the database where your new site is located (the URL), otherwise the site will not work. So in the left column, you will want to click on “wp_options”.

After clicking on “wp_options” you will see the fields associated with that table. You will want to click on “Browse” in the top menu bar.

After clicking “Browse” in the top menu area, you will then see all of the keys that are associated. The first one is called “siteurl”. You will want to edit that key to enter your new URL. So you should see a pencil icon to the left like this:

Click the pencil icon to edit that key and it is there that you will put in the new URL for your new site. After you have done that, click “Go” at the bottom of the screen to save that action.

That will tell the database that your site has a new URL from what it did when you backed it up. Once back on the screen for “wp_options” if you will go to Page 2, you will see another key for “home”. Do the same thing for it. Edit it and replace the URL there as well with the URL for your new site. Click “Go” to save it.

Last but not least, you will want to look for the “upload path” field in the “wp_options” table as well. It’s usually on Page 2, but will look like this:

Click the pencil icon to edit, and make sure that the value in there is set to “wp-content/uploads”. Sometimes after the move, this will have a string of data pointing back to your old server and this can mess up all kinds of things like media uploads, plugins, etc. So you should have it set to look like this:

After you do that, click “Go” in bottom right to save your changes and you’re all done!

You can now navigate to your new site’s admin area, login and make sure that the correct theme is selected and all plugins are active.

After that, you’re ready to go….your WordPress installation has been moved to a new server and you don’t have to jump off of a bridge, because it wasn’t that hard at all!

So, until next time…