How to migrate a WordPress website to new domain properly

Are you thinking of migrating your WordPress Website to a new domain?

Well, I guess you are planning to and might be wondering how to do it.

In general, moving to a new place while catching up on everything and not missing anything behind the back is quite a hefty task.

But don’t worry. Following this article, you will completely be able to migrate your WordPress website to a new domain very precisely.

We are going to explain the step-by-step process so you can follow them thoroughly while moving your WordPress website to a new domain.

If you don’t have a WordPress website yet, you can make your own site by following our detailed guide on starting a WordPress website.

Let’s get started then.

We mostly hear the terms “domain” and “hosting” very often. Are both terms the same? If they are different, then what’s the difference between them?

First of all, let’s be clear about the domain. What is it? What does it really do?

All right, talking about a domain, it is the address of a website, which helps a visitor to find your website very easily. In this case, wptracer.com is the domain of our website. In the same way, hosting provides the storage to pile up your website files in an ordered manner.

Now let’s get to the main subject. We’ll be moving our old site oldwebsite.com to the new site newwebsite.com. In this tutorial, we will be using two plugins to migrate our website; first being the all-time-popular “All in one WP Migration” and the second being the “Duplicator.”

Migrating WordPress website using All-In-one WP migration

Step 1: Installing the plugin

First of all, from the WordPress dashboard on your old website you have to add a new plugin by going to the plugins >> Add new and then search ” All-in-One WP Migration” then, install, and activate it.

Step 2: Exporting files from old website

Now after the plugin has been installed and activated, you need to click on All-in-One WP migration from the side bar of your WordPress dashboard and it shows the export bar.

Clicking on the Export option will redirect you to the export site and from there you can export your website successfully to various platforms such as a file, FTP, Dropbox, and many more.

If you are using the free version of All-in-one WP Migration I suggest you to export the WordPress files to your computer, which you can do by clicking on File option.

Then, download the exported file and then proceed towards the next process, which is Importing the downloaded file to your new domain (newwebsite.com)

Step 3: Setting up WordPress in new website

After successfully downloading the exported file from your old website (oldwebsite.com), you must install a fresh copy of WordPress on your new website (newwebsite.com). You don’t need to do much; simply install the default version of WordPress on your new website. Because the files that we will restore from the old website will replace all of the default settings on your new WordPress installation (newwebsite.com).

Additionally, after installing and setting up WordPress on your new website, you need to install All-in-one WP migration plugin on the new site as well.

After you have installed and activated all-in-one WP migration on your new website (newwbsite.com), you need to import the files you just downloaded from your old website (oldwebsite.com) in the previous step.

To Import, go to the dashboard of the new site click on All-in-one WP migration from the side bar and click on “Import”.

Select the same file you have downloaded and click on Proceed.

When you select a file, the plugin begins preparing the upload to your new website. After that it will check for  extension compatibility, and then you’ll be introduced with a screen informing you that if you continue from this point, files and databases will be overwritten. Click Continue to import your site.  If you continue, the import will begin. This importing process may take some time, depending on the size of your site and the speed of your server.

Once the importing process finished, you will be shown a popup with a successful message. The final step is to log in to the new site (newwebsite.com) using the credentials from the old site as we have imported all the setting of the old website.

Additionally, you should go to the settings in the dashboard of the new website and save the permalinks twice to avoid any permalinks error coming from the migration.

That’s it you have successfully migrated your old website to a new domain using all-in-one WP migration.

Note: You can use this same process to backup your WordPress website and restore it in the future to the same domain too.

There is also another way of migrating your website. That is, by using the Duplicator Plugin.

You may be wondering about how to do it.

Well, don’t worry, we are also explaining that process here in the very simplest way.

Migrating WordPress website using Duplicator

Step 1: Review your Status

• You must have the required WordPress website set up on your old site so that you can migrate it to the new site.
• In the same way, you must have a WordPress hosting account, and you should also be familiar with the web hosting dashboard, mostly the control panel.
• Additionally, you’ll need to understand how to utilize an FTP client like FileZilla or the File Manager application found in your hosting account dashboard to edit files.

Step 2: Make a backup for your website

To back up your WordPress site, there are a lot of plugins that you can use to create a backup for free. The overall process is direct and straightforward. Let’s move on to this:

Login to the dashboard of your old WordPress site

Go to the plugins section and select add new. then search for the duplicator. Go ahead and install it and then activate the plugin.

Great, now after it is activated, search on the left side of your dashboard, there you can see a tab named duplicator. Click here, and click new package. Follow the process then go to next.

After completion, go to build and create the package respectively.

After that, when it’s done, download choices for the Installer and the Archive package will appear. Click the “One-click download” link in order to download the package files to your computer.

This process will pack up all of your settings for plugins, images, WordPress themes, and everything you have. Similarly, the WordPress migration will be automated and done by the installer script, which is a PHP file that unpacks the archive file.

Step 3: Get everything ready to set up the new website

You should get everything ready for the new website so that you can set it up properly.

The first thing you have to do is go to your dashboard and create a database for the new website. This is where being comfortable with your hosting provider and using a control panel will be helpful to you.

• After that, log in to your hosting provider’s account.
• To set everything up, log in to your dashboard, and look up for database or MySQL database.
• Then, move forward and create a new database name. The name should be something you can remember easily. Create the database and once it is created, you also need to create a MySQL user.
• Let’s go back to creating a user. you can start that thereby creating a username and generating a strong password to the username. Make sure you don’t forget it later.

Then add the user you just created to the database. You can also manage user privileges there. For that you yourself can decide what privilege you want to give to that particular user.

As of right now, you can transfer your WordPress site can to the new domain name using your database.

Step 4: Install and setup your site in the new domain

In this step, we need to upload those files to the new domain so that we can create a new website. From the dashboard of the hosting service provider, head over to your file manager. If you are comfortable with using FTP Client, you can also use that.

Make sure you are in the folder of public.html.

• Now, the duplicator files you previously downloaded must now be uploaded to your new domain. However, you do not have to set up WordPress on your new domain because the duplicator bundle already includes WordPress installation.

You are now set to unpack WordPress after you finish uploading both files. Go to the following address in a new browser tab:

• http://newwebsite.com/installer.php. The Duplicator migration wizard will then start.
• The WordPress database backup will now be unpacked by Duplicator and imported into your new database.
• You will then be required to edit the site URL or path. Since it immediately recognizes the updated URL of your domain name and its path, you shouldn’t need to make any changes.
• If not, you can modify the URL to point to your new domain name. Follow the process by clicking continue in the further dialog boxes.

After finishing the migration process, to access the WordPress admin area of your website on the new domain name, select the Admin Login option. And the process gets completed respectively.

Step 5: Verify your website on the new domain

Check out your new domain by opening it in your browser. You’re done if everything went according to plan. 

In accordance with the majority of cases, your website has successfully been relocated, together with all of its photos and links.

FAQs

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, we discussed two different plugins, namely All-in-one WP Migration and Duplicator to migrate a WordPress website to a new domain in easy and safe way.

If you have anything to say regarding the article, please let us know in the comments down below. Your views and opinions are always welcome.