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How to copy WordPress to another hosting account

Whether you want to move your WordPress to another hosting account with the same host or to a different hosting company here are the things that you have to do:

  • Before you start make sure you have a recent backup of the files and the database.

  • If the URL of the new site is going to be different than that of the old one, log in to the admin panel of the old site, go to Settings menu>General sub-menu and edit the URL address in the fields WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) so that it matches the one that you're going to use for the transferred site. Make sure you do this before exporting the database of the old site. If you're going to use the same URL address, you can skip this step. It's also possible to edit the URL address manually. This can be done with phpMyAdmin. Once the database is transferred you can change the URL address in the new database only manually.

  • Download the files of your WordPress from the old hosting account and save them on your local computer. One way of doing this is with an FTP client.

  • Upload the downloaded WordPress files to the new hosting account.

  • Export the database of the WordPress installation that you want to move and save the database dump file on your local computer. You can do this with phpMyAdmin or via SSH.

  • Log into your new hosting account and create a new database with a user and password for it. In the Pixie control panel there's a Databases section from which you can do this.

  • Import the database dump file that's on your local computer to the new database. You can do this with phpMyAdmin or through SSH.

  • You have to edit the wp-config.php file of the transferred WordPress and update the database information in it. You can do this directly on your hosting account from the Files section of the Pixie control panel. Another way is to download it on your local computer with an FTP client, edit it with a text editor (Notepad, Wordpad) and upload it back overwriting the old file. In the wp-config.php file you need to change the values for DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD with respectively the name of the newly created database into which you imported the database dump file, and with the username and password of the user that you created for that database.

For screenshots and some additional information read the tutorial on how to move WordPress from one host to another.

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