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Guide: Transferring your blog to another host

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About two weeks ago I moved my blog to a new hosting provider, from goDaddy. The whole process was a smooth one, except for the small issue that was caused by one particular plugin.

I thought I would document this process, so that some of you who are changing your hosting (or thinking of changing in the future) can refer to it.

Checklist

First things first, you need to have these things done before you start your transfer.

• All your backups
• Get the latest version of WordPress
• Make sure that your blog theme is compatible with the latest version of WP
• Get your DNS info of your new hosting. You will use it to point your domain name to the new hosting.

What to backup?

• Your Database: it can be done by this plugin or phpMyAdmin, which is usually provided by your webhosting.
• Your blog files: Make sure that you backup all your blog files. Especially;
  • /images folder: without it your blog won’t have any images, so don’t forget to backup this folder. Especially if you are uploading images to somewhere outside your blog theme folder. (outside /wp-content/themes/)
  • Your blog settings: Permalink structure, Writing, Reading, Discussion Options etc.
  • Plugins and their settings: backing up your plugins is not enough. Don’t forget to backup their settings too. This can be done by opening plugins’ settings page and choosing from your browser “Save Page As”. This way, the page will retain its settings in the fields, and you can easily cut and paste them to the new blog.

Transfer Process

By now, you should have everything you need for the transfer to take place. The actual process should be over by 30 minutes or so. (But be prepared for any unforeseen issues, especially if you are using many plugins. Also your DNS might take longer than usual to propogate).

As for the database file, you need to have the latest backup file. This way, you won’t lose the last comments that your readers made. Your objective is to have “zero” loss of info. So, before you start the transfer, backup your database for the last time, and use that file.

• Upload all your files: Start uploading all your blog files to the new server. Including your theme, plugins and ‘images’ folder.
• Create an index.html page and upload it to the root folder: The page extension should be .html. You already have index.php, which is a WordPress file. index.html will act as the temporary index page while you are installing and transferring your hosting. Write something explanatory in your index.html page. Something like “Upgrade in progress, we will be back in 30 minutes“.
• Change your domain name’s DNS to the new IP address: This is done from your domain name management account. eg: goDady, NetworkSolutions..etc
• Wait for your DNS to propagate: This could take from 20 minutes to few hours. Once you see your index.html when you type your domain name, you should start the installation process. The reason why we wait for DNS to propagate is because we want your URL to be in the blog settings. Otherwise your temporary URL would be inserted into your mySQL and you have to change it manually from your DBMS (DB Management System).
• Install the blog: it should take you few minutes to install wordpress on your new hosting.
• Update your blog’s database with your database backup file: This is the file that you backed up with the WP Plugin or phpMyAdmin. This will insert all your posts, comments, some of your plugins’ data to the new hosting. Warning: Avoid inserting all contents of the backup file. Because in it, there are settings that are specific to your previous hosting. Obviously, using it on other hosts will cause your blog to function properly.

  Therefore it’s better to insert the data one at a time. I inserted posts first, followed by comments, and some plugin data. I also found that some plugins like Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam Image Plugin generated too much duplicate data in the database. The amount of data this particular plugin generated was too huge. It kept inserting the same captcha word (eg. adesblog) over and over again into the database. So, next time you should be careful using plugins with known issues.

• Enable the theme and plugins: You should test your plugins locally beforehand. But if you haven’t, then try activating them one at a time. This way, if there is any error, you know which plugin is causing error.

That’s it. This is the whole process that I have taken. It worked very well for me and I was done with the transfer under 30 minutes.

But DNS propagation was going forth and back for about 24 hours. Since I had two blogs running simultaneously on two locations, users who saw different versions still saw a functioning blog. So that is another thing to consider. Do not delete your old blog right away. Give it some time, until your DNS reflects the new hosting fully.

Note: This might not be the best way to tranfer a blog to a new hosting. Therefore, it should not be taken as the only guide that you use for your transfer. Make sure you check other resources too. It just worked for me and I am sharing it with a goodwill, that hopefully it will benefit someone. Please let me know if there is a better way to do some or all of the steps that I have taken. (Ades)

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