How to move your wordpress website without uploading or downloading any backup file.
This tutorial would work for you if you want to:
* Migrate an existing wordpress website to a different server.
* Migrate or move your existing wordpress website to a different server with different domain name or address.
First login to your wordpress dashboard and install the plugin named “UpdraftPlus”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus
After activating the plugin you need to configure it to work with Google Drive.
Below is the video showing how to configure this plugin.
Don’t want to watch the video, then follow the link below for text instructions.
https://updraftplus.com/support/configuring-google-drive-api-access-in-updraftplus
After you successfully configure the plugin, click on backup now and the backup files will be sent to Google Drive
https://drive.google.com/drive
Now log in to the new server where you want to move your existing website. You might be using cpanel, vestacp, any other control panel or just SSH, doesn’t matter. All you need to do is install wordpress on that server.
You would need to point your domain name to the server where you install wordpress. Nameservers / DNS takes some time to update.
Visit the website and log in to the wordpress admin dashboard.
Now go to plugins then click on add new and search for “UpdraftPlus”. Install and activate the plugin.
After activating the plugin visit Google API Console https://console.developers.google.com the same developer console using which you configured the UpdraftPlus plugin.
Click on Credentials and then UpdraftPlus
Copy Client Id and Client Secret
Go to the settings page in the UpdraftPlus plugin, select Google Drive , paste the Client Id in Google Drive Client ID field and Client Secret in the Google Drive Client Secret field.
Click “save changes” situated at the bottom of the page.
Allow access
Click on Existing Backups then Rescan remote storage
Existing backups from Google Drive will be fetched. Click on Restore.
Make sure all those boxes are checked from plugins to database. Click on Restore button.
Again click on restore (ignore any warnings you get).
After the restore process you would be logged out.
In case you migrated the website and kept the same domain name then nothing more needs to be done and you can now log in to your wordpress site using the username and password of the website you migrated.
But;
If you migrated your wordpress website and there is a change in domain name or address then you need to update your wordpress site url and database.
Go to file manager or you can use ftp client like filezilla to access wordpress directory.
Open wp-config.php file and at the top of the file just below the <?php
add the following two lines
define('WP_HOME','http://example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.com');
Replace example.com with the new domain name or website url.
Now you will be able to access wordpress admin dashboard.
After logging in go into Plugins then Add New and search for the plugin named Search and Replace.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/search-and-replace
Since there is a change in your website address and the old database has the old links we need to replace them with newer ones.
Go into tools and click on Search and Replace.
Replace old-domain.com with the domain name of the website you were using before you migrated the site and replace new-domain.com with the new website address that you are currently using. Make sure there is no white space.
‘Select all tables’ and to be on the safe side check the box ‘Dry Run’. Dry Run works like preview. Click on ‘Do search and replace situated at the bottom of the page with Dry Run checked’. Then at the top of the page click on View details the changes will be previewed.
If the result of Dry Run seems fine then go ahead and uncheck Dry Run and check the radio button “Save changes to the Database”. This time the changes will be saved inside the Database and the old value which is your old domain name will be updated to the new one. Nothing more needs to be done this ends the migration process.
