How to Change Servers for WordPress? WordPress Migration Tutorial

Do You Think WordPress Migration is Difficult?Actually, it's quite simple to migrate WordPress yourself. You just need to understand the principle and then proceed with the operation.

The Principle of WordPress Migration

WordPress migration is similar to moving house in real life. Website data is moved from one server to another. What we need to do is to package all the WordPress website data and copy it from the old server to the new server. For example, when you move from an old house to a new one, you hire a moving company to transport all your belongings to the new house, and then do some tidying up, and the move is complete. WordPress migration is even simpler than a real-life move. Below, Naiba will introduce several common methods for WordPress migration.

Common WordPress Migration Methods

Using All-in-One WP Migration for Migration

All-in-One WP MigrationThis plugin has been introduced by Naiba before and is very useful.

Operation Steps on the Old Server

1. Log in to the website Admin Dashboard on the old server, go to the Plugins page, and install All-in-One WP Migration.2. Activate the plugin and export all data from the website on the old server.Download the backed-up website files to your local computer.

Operation on the New Server

Next, we proceed to operate on the new server. There are several scenarios for the new server:

1. If you purchased Shared Hosting, for example,SiteGround、GreenGeeks、HostingerThis type, they will usually bind the website for you by default. You just need to click one-click WordPress installation in the backend.
2. If you purchased a VPS, you need to create the website to be migrated in the backend yourself. For example, in Baota Panel, follow the steps as shown in the figure below.

1. Normally add the website in Baota Panel, then install a blank WordPress site on this website.

You might encounter a problem here because the domain name hasn't been pointed to the new server via DNS, or the DNS hasn't propagated yet. Then you won't be able to install the blank WordPress. We can use the method of modifying the hosts file to resolve the website directly to the new server locally. (If you don't know how to modify it, please search on Baidu, Bing, or Google for a tutorial on modifying the hosts file.)

2. After installation, go to the plugin backend, install All-in-One WP Migration, and activate it. 3. Click on the All-in-One WP Migration menu, select Import, and upload the backup file previously downloaded to your computer.At this point, there will be a prompt about a 50MB size limit. Our backup file from earlier is over 200MB, so it cannot be imported directly. Therefore, we need to find a way to bypass the upload size limit. Method 1: Refer to the „Modify the All-in-One WP Migration 50MB Size Limit" section in the previously introduced article; Method 2: Install the all-in-one-wp-migration-unlimited-extension.zip extension. The all-in-one-wp-migration-unlimited-extension is paid. You can click the GET UNLIMITED button to see the official price. Naiba has purchased the genuine version; you can also choose to pay to download it.Genuine Extension Download 4. Click the PROCEED button to restore the backup.If it prompts 'Your site has been imported successfully!', the backup restoration is successful. The next steps to do are as follows:

1. Set up website pseudo-static rules (re-save the pseudo-static rules in the backend to automatically generate pseudo-static files for Apache servers; if using Baota Panel, remember to enable pseudo-static in the website settings);
2. Resolve the domain name IP to the new server;
3. After the domain name resolution takes effect, configure the SSL security certificate;
4. Change the website URL in the website settings to https.

How about it, isn't using All-in-One WP Migration for backup particularly convenient?

Using Baota Panel for One-Click Migration

If both your old server and new server are set up using Baota Panel, you can use the one-click migration method.Search for 'one-click migration' in the Baota Panel software store, then install the Baota One-Click Migration API. There is an official tutorial included, so Naiba won't introduce it here.

Purely Manual Migration

Although plugins and APIs are convenient, there are inevitably situations where these simple methods may fail, so it's still necessary to master the purely manual migration method. The basic steps are as follows, please execute according to the actual situation:

1. Back up website files and database from the old server's management backend to local;
2. Bind the domain name to be migrated on the new server;
3. Upload the backed-up website files to the root directory via the new server's backend management panel;
4. Create a database on the new server and import the database file backed up from the old website;
5. Modify the wp-config.php file on the new server to update the database information created in step 4 into the configuration file;
6. Modify domain name resolution, configure SSL certificate, pseudo-static, and other follow-up operations.