Recently I was faced with a challenge involving the relocation of a WordPress blog. The task at hand involved the moving of a WordPress blog from one folder location to another in t atthe same web server. Given that I’ve used WordPress for a few years now and kindly consider myself an expert in the area I eagerly jumped into this with both feet in. Wrong! It did take me a bit to do some research and analysis to find out the best approach to this. I’m glad that I took the time to do this otherwise it may have taken alot longer to complete.
WordPress continues to grow on daily basis as the Global demand for blogging continues to rise. I thought that I would share this particular experience with those out there that may be facing a similar issue like mine. Frankly after some research and trial/error attempts it all came into place. I’ve seen the light! It feels so good knowing that you’ve found a solution to something on your own…achieved! Let’s get into the technical stuff and hopefully I can help some of you out there in moving your WordPress Blog successfully.
Before you begin working on your blog I would suggest that you complete the following actions.
Backing up your WordPress Blog
- Deactivate all plugins in your existing WordPress installation prior to download its files.
- Download all files associated with your WordPress blog from its directory including the folders wp-admin, wp-content, & wp-include.
- Backup the MySQL database which stores the data for your WordPress Blog. NOTE: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT STEP! Make sure that you export your existing WordPress database.
Exporting your blog’s content
I would highly suggest that you export the data which stores all of your blog’s content as well prior to working on anything else. You can accomplish this by following these steps:
- Log in to the administration area of your WordPress blog. This url consists of the following url structure http://www.yourblogdomain.com/wp-admin
- Once logged in select Tools – Export from the left-side panel of the blog.
- In the drop-down box I would choose the All Authors and then click on the Download XML File button.
- A popup box should appear on your screen prompting you to save the .xml file on your computer. Please do so and keep this file in a safe location. IMPORTANT: DO NOT DELETE THIS FILE! If you do so you will most likely be unable to restore previous Posts, Plugins, Themes, etc.
Setting up your new WordPress Blog
- Create a new folder on your web root where you would like your new WordPress blog to reside.
- Grab a fresh copy of WordPress and upload its files to the new blog folder using an FTP client. One that’s fairly easy to use is FileZilla.
- Perform the Famous 5 minute WordPress installation as if you were setting up a new WordPress blog.
- Upload all former blog files to the new blog folder overwriting the default WordPress files. Don’t worry there is a reason why we are doing this. If there are any hard coded urls in any of your former files you will need to change those to reflect the new destination url of your blog.
- Log in to the administration panel of your WordPress blog by going to http://www.yourblogdomain.com/wp-admin. You will need to use the username admin and the starter password that was given to you at the end of the Famous 5 minute WordPress installation.
- Once logged in click on Tools – Import located in the left-side panel of the administration area.
- Choose the XML file that you exported from the former blog and import it into your new blog. This will restore all data from your previous blog including all of your posts.
Congratulations! You have moved your blog from one folder to another on your web server successfully. Now please kindly send a generous payment to my PayPal account for helping you emerge from a rock and hard place situation 🙂
Summary
Those of you that have been using the WordPress application for some time may be curious as to why I am instructing you to follow these guidelines. One thing that most people do not know about WordPress is the way that it stores ulr’s in the MySQL database. Unlike other content management systems WordPress actually stores absolute links of your blog’s address in its database as oppose to relative paths. This is both good and bad depending on which angle you’re seeking the solution from.
Moving the database and files of your blog to a new folder would be the logical step. Although if you were to do that then you may end up with lots of unwanted errors and headaches. This is why it’s better to perform a fresh installation of WordPress when moving an existing blog in order to prevent any technical difficulties.
If you still have any questions about moving your WordPress blog then feel free to drop me a line. Let me know if I was able to help you with this .