Copying a WordPress Website
Copying or moving a WordPress site to a different domain
This is a simplified 7 step process showing the main steps of moving or copying your domain.
- Login to the backend of your WordPress site and deactivate all plugins. (Sometimes leaving them activated can cause problems).
- Go to File Manager via Cpanel, and open the public_html folder. Select all and zip. Download the zip file and make sure to delete the copy on the server.
- In the new domain go to Cpanel and then to MySQL Database and create a new database. Also create a new user and make a note of the password. Add the user to the new database.
- In the new domain go to File Manager and update the wpconfig.php file with the new database name, new user and new password from step 3.
- In the old domain, in Cpanel go to MyPHPadmin and download the SQL file.
- Open in Notepad++ or similar and do a search and replace to change all instances of the old domain with the new domain.
- In the new domain, via MyPHPadmin, select the new empty database you created and then upload the amended SQL file.