Whether you’re unhappy with your current web hosting provider or you need to switch your web hosting account, you require to grasp a strong command over website migration process.
As you know, a website contains its data and the database; you need to migrate both the things to your new web hosting account.
There are different website transfer methods, depending on your expertise, you can use any. But today, you’re going to learn the most straightforward way, without dealing with the WordPress core files and folders.
A few years ago, there was only one method to backup and restore a website, but now, there are many alternatives.
During this tutorial, you’re going to use the backup wizard, and the backup option cPanel offers. If you’re using a decent web hosting, you can easily find such options.
You may be wondering about backing up your WordPress site using a backup plugin. Well, you can, but sometimes when you don’t have access to the admin panel, you require use cPanel.
And of course, it’s vital to use cPanel to make no mistake. Sometimes, while restoring a website using a plugin, the images links seem broken.
So, it’s better to learn this method.
Backup Your Website and its Database
There are thousands of articles explaining the manual method to back up your website and its database. I am going to show you the most straightforward way, which is useful for non-techie users.
Step 1:
Login to your cPanel account and search for the Files’ section. You can see many icons including Backup, click to open.
You can see an option to create a full backup which will consist of the home directory, database, email accounts, FTP accounts, etc.
But, if you scroll down, you can see an option to create partial backups. Use the button or link to download the home directory and database backup separately.
Depending on your internet speed, you can have the backup files on your computer hard drive.
Congrats, you have successfully managed to have the backup of your website and its database, without facing any technical issue.
Now is the time to see an option to restore these files.
Restore the Backup Files
As discussed above, you need to click on the Backup icon from the Files’ section; the same page appears to you.
Scroll down, and you can see restore options for the partial backup you have done in the previous step.
Click Choose File for each, select the backup files from your computer and start uploading.
Depending on the size of the backup files and the internet speed, you can see files uploading.
Wait till the process gets completed and click Go Back.
Congrats, you have successfully restored your backup files, but the work isn’t done yet. You have to create a new database and assign its credentials to the website’s data you have restored.
When you migrate your website from one web hosting server to another, you need to match the database credentials. Otherwise, you start to get the “Error Establishing a Database Connection.â€
I hope you know how to edit the wp-config.php file and find the database details, replace the old information with the new database you just created.
Save Changes, and after the DNS settings, you can see your website running on your new server.
Use Backup Wizard to Backup and Restore Your Website
As the topic of the article suggests, you should know the actual use of the Backup Wizard. The method mentioned above is as similar to using the Backup Wizard.
Let me give you a tour.
Step 1:
First of all, you need to backup your website.
Step 2:
Just like you did earlier, choose any of these.
I prefer to download the partial backups from here.
Note: You can’t restore the full backup using cPanel interface, so it’s better to use the partial backup option.
Step 3:
Repeat the process for downloading the MySQL database backup.
You have successfully downloaded the backup file, now is the time to restore it.
Step 4:
Now, it can be confusing, because you see no option to restore the full backup. So, you have the partial backup files, no worry and choose to upload the home directory file, apply the same for the database backup.
Depending on the size of the backup files, you can see the process going. Once you finish uploading, you need to create a new database and assign its credentials to the website you have just restored.
As you have already seen in the first method, you need to edit the wp-config.php file.
Wait for 24 hours to after pointing the DNS to your new web hosting server, and your website goes live. Congrats, you have learned two different yet similar ways to migrate your WordPress website from one host to another.
I Hope You Can Easily Transfer Your Website
For non-techie people, it can be a hard job to pull, but cPanel has made it more convenient than ever before. You can quickly figure out the backup and restore process.
If you ask 100 WordPress users, around 70 of them may not want to do it their own, they might hire a WordPress professional or pay to their new web hosting company.
Well, as you can see, migrating a website isn’t as scary as it sounds. You can easily transfer the site and its database using Backup Wizard.
Conclusion
The question arises if you can move your website to a new server while hosting multiple sites on the same server. You should know, when you back up the home directory, it consists of all the folders and files comprised all of your websites, so it can be hard to segregate them.
It’s better to back up the database using phpMyAdmin and the website using the manual method. The ways mentioned above are for the single site.
Check out these top 3 WordPress hosting services:
- Check out our recommendations for the best wordpress web hosting.
