How to change or modify your WordPress hosting
Currently, tasks like setting up a blog or a website are relatively straightforward, just a few clicks and that’s it: the page is on the Internet!
Choosing the best WordPress hosting (as well as the domain) is very important if you are working in WordPress. Hosting is what makes your website accessible to everyone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, the decision to select the best Web host to move to is crucial to achieving your goals.
So what are the steps to follow if your intention is to move your WordPress site to another Web host?
What is WordPress hosting and why is it important that hosting is specialized for WordPress?
A WordPress hosting is a hosting that supports the WordPress CMS system. On top of that, a good WordPress hosting offers perfect performance and specs for CMS operation. And not all Whosting gives this good performance for WordPress, even if they say so in their advertisements.
To host WordPress you will need PHP and a MySQL database. The Web host company offer specific services for WordPress hosting.
Good Web host also offer a quick and easy WordPress installation system from their control panels with just a few clicks. This saves you the tedious process of uploading files, creating databases, users, privileges, and so on.
How WordPress hosting is essential for the success of your project
It is essential that you take into account the importance of a good hosting service for the success of your web project. For this reason, too cheap accommodation is not advisable because it is full of problems. It is slow and offers poor support.
Right now these aspects are very important. Also, you will be glad you invested a little more in your new hosting in return for security, support, performance and positioning.
Choosing accommodation is the first phase you need to focus on and also one of the most important. When you go through this step, you don’t only have to look at the price of the service, but also its intrinsic characteristics.
If you plan to move a WordPress site with many pages, you will need more powerful hosting than a site that has only three or four showcase pages.
Specifically, the WordPress hosting you choose must have PHP and MySQL.
In addition, if you are planning a heavy traffic, it is advisable to have dedicated, non-shared hosting.
- Read about free WordPress hosting
Main criteria for choosing the best Web host to move to
1. Performance and speed for user experience and SEO
It’s Very important. Good WordPress hosting will serve your website quickly so that users can see it immediately, without unnecessary waiting. Additionally, load speed is a big factor in SEO today. Google likes websites that load quickly and easily.
Therefore, fast Web host will help you position yourself better and you will achieve more success and profitability in your project through SEO. In the analysis below, I will do a detailed study of the speed of the selected accommodations.
2. Security to avoid attacks and vulnerabilities
Crucial. Secure Web host means peace of mind. Every day there are more websites in WordPress, which means that the threat to sites developed under this technology is increasing.
Secure WordPress hosting has filters and detection systems that will prevent attacks of all kinds. This way your content and your business will be safe on the Internet.
3. Support to easily solve any problem
Another essential aspect when you evaluate the quality of an accommodation. A good support service is very valuable, especially when you have doubts or specific problems. Quality accommodations have experts who meet your needs, and they’ll take care of everything you need quickly and efficiently.
When you need it, it is appreciated to have professionals to help you.
Transfer the content to the new Web host
The content transfer phase is quite tricky and there are different ways to do it.
The easiest way to migrate content is through FTP. You should then download the files from your hosting account directly to your computer and then upload them to the new hosting account folder.
The site database also needs to be moved via SQL, which is why we mentioned MySQL as an important feature.
Then you have to perform the switching of the actual pages which you can do manually with copy and paste or by using the automated services provided by third-party companies.
If you are moving your WordPress site to a new server or to a new location, there is no need to reinstall WordPress. This system is flexible enough to handle various situations.
SYSTEM BACKUP
If you are going to move your WordPress site from one server to another, it is advisable to make a backup copy of the entire WordPress directory (images, plugins, etc …) including the database.
MIGRATION BY KEEPING THE SAME DOMAIN NAME AND THE SAME URLS
If the WordPress system migration is to be done keeping the same domain and URL, the process is really quite simple and in most cases it can be done just by moving the files from one server to another.
If the database and URL remain the same, you can move the system by simply copying the files and the database.
If the database or user name changes, the wp-config.php file should be edited to indicate the correct values (database name and user).
Note that if you have any type of rewrite (permalinks), you must disable the .htaccess file and reconfigure the permalinks after the migration is complete.
MIGRATION WITH CHANGE OF DOMAIN NAME AND URL
To migrate WordPress to a new domain and a new URL (i.e. from http://example.com/site to http://example.com or http://example.com to http: // example.net) requires the following steps:
- Make a backup of all website and database files.
- From the CONFIGURATION section of the administrative area of your WordPress, modify the URLs. (i.e. http://example.com/ at http://example.net) – save the settings and refresh the browser. If ERROR 404 appears, it is because the change was made successfully.
- Edit the wp-config.php file with the new MySQL server, database name, username and password.
- You can also indicate the new domain by adding these lines:
-
- define (‘WP_HOME’, ‘http: //example.com’);
- define (‘WP_SITEURL’, ‘http: //example.com’);
-
- Download the backup of the old files to the new server.
- Import the database to the new server.
When the domain name or URL changes, a number of additional precautions should be taken. Files and database can be moved, but references to the domain name or location will remain in the database can cause problems with the link
Therefore, if you search and replace URLs in the database, it can cause issues with data flagging, as some themes and widgets store values with the marked URL length. When this changes, some plugins, features, themes may stop working. To avoid this problem, you must use a series of specific processes and tools to do this job.
Moving from WordPress hosting to a new one is a task that can be complicated, mostly due to the inconveniences that sometimes arise along the way.
The manual method, many times, does not work, so that the appearance and functionality of your WordPress Web site is affected at the end of the process. And that is why it is always advisable to use web hosts from quality. The amount of work and hours that these WordPress hosting save you is definitely the strong point of opting for them.
