Move Your WordPress Site Manually

DIFFICULTY	Basic - 1 \| Medium - 2 \| Advanced - 3
TIME REQUIRED	30 min
RELATED PRODUCTS	Managed WordPress

This article will show you how to manually move your WordPress Website to Managed WordPress. You'll need the wp-content folder and the SQL database dump

First, setup your new Managed WordPress Account

Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Manage.
Click either Create a New WordPress Website or Migrate Your Existing WordPress Website.
Complete the on-screen fields, and then click Finish.
If you're migrating an existing WordPress Website, we recommend selecting a temporary domain name (more info).

Now connect via SFTP and copy over wp-content folder.

To Find Your sFTP and phpMyAdmin Credentials

Log in to Gateway using your GoWebsite login.
Under the WordPress hosting Website you want to use, click Settings.
Go to the SSH & sFTP or Database tab.
Select Show Password.

Your account's SSH, sFTP or phpMyAdmin username and password display. You cannot change them.

sFTP

You can use this information to connect to your account using a third-party FTP client, such as FileZilla. For more information, see the Connecting to Your Hosting Account with FileZilla section of Backup your website with FTP and FileZilla.

When you connect, some FTP clients place you in the root of the server. From there, enter the home directory, and then access your username's folder.

Your website's files are in the html directory.

Managed WordPress connects using sFTP over port 22. You cannot use non-sFTP (i.e. FTP) connections.

Only upload content of the wp-content directory and a custom .htaccess or favicon.ico. If you get an archived file un-archive locally to ensure you are only uploading the wp-content folder.

Do not remove the wp-content/mu-plugins/ directory when uploading wp-content directory. The mu-plugins/ directory is necessary for Managed WordPress features and domain changes.

Do not replace or restore the wp-config.php file from a different account.

That is it, you have uploaded all of your WordPress content, now we need to restore the database.

Database Migration

First, we will drop tables on the Managed WordPress database.

Next, import the database and change the table names: if the Managed WordPress database prefix is wp_23dwarbqvv_ then rename wp_commentmeta to wp_23dwarbqvv_commentmeta and so on.

You can find your Managed WordPress database prefix in the wp-config.php file.

Tables can be renamed in phpMyAdmin or using a SQL client (MySQL Workbench or HeidiSQL).

Query will look like this:

Remove the apostrophes when executing in phpMyAdmin SQL area.

RENAME table 'wp_commentmeta' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_commentmeta';
RENAME table 'wp_comments' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_comments';
RENAME table 'wp_links' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_links';
RENAME table 'wp_options' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_options';
RENAME table 'wp_postmeta' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_postmeta';
RENAME table 'wp_posts' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_posts';
RENAME table 'wp_terms' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_terms';
RENAME table 'wp_term_relationships' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_term_relationships';
RENAME table 'wp_term_taxonomy' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_term_taxonomy';
RENAME table 'wp_usermeta' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_usermeta';
RENAME table 'wp_users' TO 'wp_23dwarbqvv_users';

*Rename any other tables that plugins utilize in the same manner.

You'll also need to update a few values in the database.

UPDATE prefix_usermeta SET meta_key = REPLACE (meta_key, 'prefix_', 'wp_newprefix_') WHERE meta_key LIKE 'prefix_%';

UPDATE prefix_options SET option_name = REPLACE (option_name, 'prefix_', 'wp_newprefix_') WHERE option_name LIKE 'prefix_%';

Replace the bold prefix_ with your current prefix, and the wp_newprefix_ with your managed WordPress prefix. The single quotes and the % are very important to not remove.

Check for plugin incompatabiliy

Remove or replace any disallowed or duplicative plugins. A list of these plugins can be found here.