WordPress® All-in-One For Dummies®

Moving Your Web Site to a Different Host

There may come a time that you decide you need to switch from your current hosting provider to a new one. There are reasons why someone would have to do this — either you're unhappy with your current provider and want to move to a new one, or your current provider is going out of business and you're forced to move. Transferring from one host to another is a reality that some Web site owners must face, and transferring an existing Web site, with all of its content, files, and data, from one host to another can seem a very daunting task. This section of the chapter should make it easier for you.

You can go about it two ways:

• Manually through backing up your database and downloading essential files
• Using a plugin to automate as much of the process as possible

Obviously, using a tool to automate the process for you to make it easier is the more desirable way to go, but just in case you need to do it manually, in the next section of this chapter, I provide you with the instructions for doing it both ways.

Creating a backup and moving manually

In Book II, Chapter 5, we provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to take a backup of your database by using phpMyAdmin. Follow the steps available in that chapter and you'll have a backup of your database with all the recent content you've published to your blog. However, when we say content, we mean what you've (or someone else has) written or typed into your blog via the WordPress Dashboard, ...