Moving with WordPress: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to building websites, WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems out there. No wonder: The CMS can be flexibly adapted to your own needs, has countless design themes and offers almost endless design possibilities thanks to a variety of plugins. Nevertheless, a time may come when you need to switch to a new web host - and your WordPress will need to be migrated to a new server. In order for this migration to run smoothly and ideally without downtime of the domain, some things need to be considered. You can find out what these are in our following step-by-step guide.

Why move with WordPress at all?

At the beginning, you might ask yourself when you should move with your WordPress at all. The reasons for this are usually individual. Some of the most common causes are:

• Performance: The most common reason for moving with WordPress is a server change. This can be the case, for example, if the existing storage capacity of the current server is no longer sufficient. Perhaps you are also simply not satisfied with the performance and therefore want to switch to a faster provider.

• Security and management: A new hosting provider might offer additional features that are advantageous for your website. These include, for example, better security features or integrated CDN support. Perhaps you also want to switch to a new hosting provider because they offer a better management interface or customer support.

• Budget: A simple but equally common reason: the budget. Have you found a provider that offers better conditions? Then it's worth migrating your WordPress to a new server.

Change domain or complete server migration?

Before you start, it's important to distinguish whether you just want to change your WordPress domain or perform a complete server migration. Changing your domain is appropriate when the website is to be found under a different name in the future. On WordPress, this change is relatively quickly set up in the settings. We have summarized exactly how this works in our guide on the topic moving WordPress domain.

If you want to migrate your WordPress to a completely new server, the process can be considerably more complex depending on the approach.

Moving WordPress: Manually or with plugins?

There are basically two ways to migrate with WordPress: In the first variant, you migrate all content manually. However, this approach requires a lot of technical know-how. The move with WordPress using plugins, on the other hand, is far more comfortable. They not only help you with data security, but also with importing into the new system. This saves you time and is also very useful for beginners.

Nevertheless, for some admins it may be interesting to move the WordPress website without the help of plugins. This way, you not only get to know the technical processes that would otherwise be carried out by plugins. You also get a feeling for where potential sources of error or weak points might lurk when moving your WordPress. In addition, some plugins sometimes have difficulties if the site to be migrated is extremely extensive - in the worst case, this can lead to a downtime of the domain. But no matter which way you choose in the end: It is important that the move is carefully prepared and executed conscientiously.

Moving WordPress manually: step-by-step guide

If you want to migrate WordPress on your own, follow this guide:

1. Create backup: First, create a full backup of your website - including the database, all files and media content. For larger sites with a lot of content, mySQLDumper is a good tool for the database backup. For the actual WordPress files and folders, you can, for example, use the free FileZilla. Save all this content locally on your computer. Also, write down all relevant access data and passwords.

2. Register new web space: If you haven't done so already, register with the new web host. Popular providers for web hosting include STRATO Homepage Builder or IONOS.

3. Create database on the new web host: In this step, you now need to create your database on the new web host. To do this, first create a new database entry. Then you set up an FTP access, with which you can later upload your WordPress files to the new server. But before that happens, you still have to carry out the following step:

4. Update the wp-config.php file: Before you can upload your files to the new web host, you need to adjust some entries in the wp-config.php file. You can find this file in the root directory of your backup and can open it with a simple text editor. Here you can update the entries for the name, user, password, and host. You can usually find the exact information in the settings of your new web host. If you also want to register a new domain for your website when switching servers, you can save the desired address in the SQL file before uploading it. To do this, look for the entries 'home' and 'siteurl' and enter the desired URL here. Afterwards you can upload your WordPress folders and files via FTP access.

5. Import database: Now it's time to upload your database. Use the corresponding function of your new web host for this - alternatively, you can also use the tool mySQLDumper again.

Is your head smoking yet? Don't worry: After this last step you are finally finished and your website should be running on the new server!

Moving WordPress via plugins: 4 practical tools

For those who find the manual migration too cumbersome, they can turn to backup plugins for WordPress. These sometimes also include functions that make the migration to a new server extremely easy. This makes the change not only safer, but also saves time. We briefly present four helpful plugins that support you in this:

WordPress Clone

One of the most popular solutions to migrate WordPress is the WordPress Clone plugin. No wonder: The tool takes on almost all the steps that you would otherwise have to carry out manually in case of a move of your WordPress. With WordPress Clone, you can not only create a backup of your site in a few clicks. The program also allows you to import all files to the new server.

All-in-One WP Migration

The name already reveals it: Also the plugin All-in-One WP Migration wants to make your life as easy as possible and takes over almost all necessary steps when migrating your WordPress. After installing the tool, you just have to press the export button and your database, media files, plugins and design themes will be exported. Afterwards, you can conveniently import the data by drag-and-drop onto the new server.

UpdraftPlus

With the help of UpdraftPlus, you can also migrate your WordPress. The backups of your website can be stored on multiple cloud servers with the program. Otherwise, UpdraftPlus works just as simply as the other two tools. The only drawback: The function for migrating your WordPress site is only available in the paid version UpdraftPremium.

WordPress Duplicator

WordPress Duplicator is a plugin that allows to create a copy of a WordPress website and use it to move or duplicate it to a new place. With this plugin, you can transfer all files and database tables from one WordPress site to another by simply creating an archive and importing it on the target site.

Summary: Moving with WordPress

The migration of WordPress is relatively quick and easy to implement, especially with the help of tools. On the other hand, if you want to have full control over the processes, the manual move is the right choice. However, this approach is considerably more time-consuming and requires a lot of technical know-how. If you are currently still looking for a suitable WordPress alternative for you, we have brought along a selection of popular providers:

• Joomla

• TYPO3

• Adobe Experience Manager

• Sitecore Experience Platform

• Drupal