Sooner or later, everybody moves. Of course, I'm not talking about moving to a new house or even moving out of your parents' house. Today we'll go over the steps necessary to move your website from one host to another one.
It's really not complicated. However, the first time you move a website, it will seem really complicated.
Like most things in life, though, it's easier if you use a tool that's designed specifically to help you do the job. Fortunately, we have several of those available to us.
Why Move Your Website?
There are lots of reasons to move your website. Maybe it's gotten so popular that you need a host with higher end services. Or maybe you've found a better price somewhere else. Or, maybe your current host just isn't providing the level of service that you need.
Whatever the case may be, sooner or later, you're probably going to move your website. The first time I did it, I was 100% sure I was going to screw it up. And back then, when you made a change, it took 24 to 48 hours for the change to be completed. So it was nearly two days of stress while I waited on the change to go through.
These days, they say it can take up to 24 hours, but most of the time it's more like 15 to 30 minutes to the changes to go through. The long part is backing up and restoring your database. But even that is usually a quick process.
For the purposes of this article, I'm going to assume that you are currently using WordPress and are simply moving to another WordPress host. Moving from WordPress to Blogger or Blogger to WordPress is a whole different process. Next week's article will about moving from Blogger to WordPress and the week after will cover WordPress to Blogger. There's no need to move from a Blogger to a Blogger, because there's only one Blogger host ... Blogger (aka, Google.)
So now let's get to moving what WordPress website ...
Steps to Move Your Website
- Find your new host and create an account. I am sure this is probably obvious, but there's no need to move on to the other steps until you've done this one. GoDaddy (affiliate link) and Bluehost (not an affiliate link) are the two I use, but there are plenty of other good ones out there.
- Do a backup. While you're at it, make doing backups easy on yourself by using a backup plugin. I cannot begin to tell you how much easier this is going to make your life. I recommend either BackupBuddy (my first choice for you) or BackWPup. Backup Buddy will cost you $80 (one time fee, not annual, and covers 2 websites.) BackWPup has a free version that will do most of what you want and a paid version with some cool upgrades that costs $75. Since we're already talking about moving the website, though, BackupBuddy has a built in Migrate feature that you are going to love. Because of that, I will pretend we're using BackupBuddy for the rest of this process. So, install BackupBuddy and follow these steps: How to Manually Migrate a Site with BackupBuddy.
- Move your website. Well, you already did that in the previous step. If you used BackWPup or some other program, you'll need to move your backup file manually and restore it.
- Change your nameserver setting. Back at your registrar (GoDaddy or who ever you use,) you'll need to change the nameserver settings to point to your new host's nameserver. To do this, you first need to find the name server settings for your new host. If you don't already know them, you might have to contact tech support or search the knowledge base at your new host (for "nameserver"). Once you have the new nameservers (there should be a primary and a secondary,) go to your registrar, go into the domain manager (see below for GoDaddy example,) and type in the new nameservers. After 15 to 30 minutes (but possibly as much as 24 hours, although highly unlikely,) your new website will be up and running.
The magic part here is that BackupBuddy did all the hard work for you. It's pretty awesome.
GoDaddy Nameserver Change Example
To change the nameserver settings on a GoDaddy account, follow these instructions:
- Sign into your account at www.GoDaddy.com.
- If you don't go directly to the "My Account" section, get there (possibly by clicking the "My Account" button in the top menu bar of the screen and then clicking the button for "Visit My Account".)
- Click the plus sign (+) next to the Domains section to expand the list of domains in your account.
- Click the "Launch" button next to the domain you want to move.
- On the "Domain Settings" page, find the section for Nameservers and click the link that says "Manage."
- A window will appear asking for the setup type and showing the nameserver values. Choose "Custom" from the setup type options and then either click on "Edit Nameservers" or "Enter custom nameservers" (whichever option you get.) Now enter your primary and secondary nameserver values that you got from your new host.
The Quick Takeaway
I know that the first time you do this, it may seem scary. Using great tools like BackupBuddy, though, can really help. I know it costs a little, but it's well worth it to cut down on the hassle and heartache of doing the steps manually.