A step-by-step guide on how to migrate, backup and restore your WordPress website from one server to another hosting provider.

We’ve written this article to walk you through the process of migrating, backup and restoring your WordPress website to your desired web hosting provider.

What to expect from this article

After reading this piece of straight forward instructions, you’ll be able to migrate, backup and restore your WordPress website from you web hosting server or from your local machine.

There are several ways on how we can accomplish the process, but don’t you worry. We have simplified it for you.

Prerequisites

In order to successfully achieve what we are trying to demonstrate here. We recommend that you read some of the articles that we wrote which may help you during the migrating process.

1. Setup Guide on How to Install WordPress in Your Web Server.

2. How To Change Permalinks in your Exported WordPress Database
– This article will help you if you are importing your WordPress database for some reason listed below: (Any change in your url’s from the previous state of your backup) before proceeding to STEP 5.

1. http://localhost to http://exmple.com
2. http://olddomain.com to http://newdomain.com

Hence, that this backup process requires an extensive manual approach. Yet, still an effective method.

1. Backing up your WordPress files

To prevent data loss, always bear in mind to backup web files in any of your projects.

There are two ways to backup your web files. First is through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and Second is with your Cpanel (Control Panel > File Manager). Both are provided by your Web Host during your subscription.

Either you are working on your localhost machine or with your previous hosting provider. All you need to remember is these three (3) important directories that needs to be copied.

On this approach we will be using cpanel to save you some time downloading all the necessary files that you need.

• Plugins – (This is were all your plugins installed in your WordPress website)
• Themes – (This is were your WordPress themes is kept)
• Uploads – (all the photos that you have uploaded is kept in this directory)

Otherwise, if you see any extra directories which are generated by the plugin that you installed, include that directory into your zip file.

Follow accordingly the steps from 1 to 6 below. We need these files later.

NOTE:
Keep these files on the safest location in your local computer as this will serve as backup copy of your web files.

2. Exporting WordPress database

The same thing as above. These two processes are the most important thing that you should have in hand when migrating and restoring your WordPress website.

To do this, login to your phpmyadmin

1. Go to your databases column in your cpanel and click on the phpMyAdmin.

2. Select the database name you want to export

3. Tick the checkbox button for Check all / Check tables having overhead.

4. Click the Export button

5. Click Go button

3. Creating WordPress database on your new hosting provider

There are several options on how to create a database. But what we are about to demonstrate is the most convenient way of doing it.

1. Go to your cpanel main Dashboard and look for the databases section

2. Create a Database by following the steps illustrated below

3. Create a Database User and Password

4. Adding a user to the Database (Take note of your Database user Name and Database name including its prefix: ei. prefix_admin, prefix_test and your database password ofcourse). These are the information that we need to install WordPress.

4. Uploading your WordPress backup files

Alright, So basically before you import your backup database we need to upload everything to your WordPress wp-content directory. If you can remember all those files that you have downloaded in STEP 1.

5. Importing your WordPress database backup

Well, this process is just similar to Exporting WordPress database. hence, that if you are just migrating or moving to another server using the same domain name then you’ll be able to proceed using this process.

Hold it right here! Again, if you are importing your WordPress database for some reason listed below: (Any change in your url’s from the previous state of your backup)

1. http://localhost to http://example.com
2. http://olddomain.com to http://newdomain.com

We highly recommend reading our article on How To Change Permalinks in your Exported WordPress Database before proceeding.

If you have done this part right from the start. Then you may proceed on the next step.

1. Click on the Import tab in your phpMyAdmin dashboard.
2. Click on the Choose file button and look for the .sql database that you have just exported earlier.

3. Click on the Go button below to start importing your database

That would be it for now. We hope that you have learned a lot from this article. If think that its worth a share then help us share this content by sharing this into your social media accounts.

Let us know if we miss something or simply by saying thanks do not hesitate to use our comment form below.

Like what you see and want to support our creation, consider buying us a cup of coffee.