Imagine spending a lot of time on creating your website from scratch and going through the process of redesigning it because you want to switch to a new host. Scary right? That’s where the common requirement for WordPress site migration comes in.
But migrating a WordPress site involves a prerequisite of ‘know-how’. It’s a complex and time-consuming process that involves backing up of various files and databases, manually editing specific WordPress files and settings, constant monitoring and looking out for errors.
There’s a lot of risk involved as any mistake would lead to loss of precious data and result in damage to your site(s).
Website owners have two choices when it comes to website migrations which have their own consequences. One is hiring a developer to do the job. This, in turn, becomes an expensive affair. The second choice is a do-it-yourself approach and that comes with its own set of risks and manual effort.
Hence there is a need for a solution that automates the migration process with better functionality and user experience.
Introducing Migrate Guru – a free, fully automated WordPress migration plugin that is an easy, fast and reliable way to move any WordPress site from any host to any other host in the world. It is powered by the creators of BlogVault – one of the top WordPress backup plugins.
Why Migrate Guru?
Since plugin performs the migration process on BlogVault servers, it’s poses ZERO risk to your live site. This also ensures that the migration process doesn’t time out, no matter the size of your site. The best part about this plugin – It is completely Free.
With Migrate Guru, the entire process of website migration becomes a straightforward Do-it-yourself task. All you need to do is follow the step by step instructions given below.
WordPress Website Migration to Any Host Using Migrate Guru
Using Migrate Guru you can migrate your WordPress site from and to any host:
1) If you’re migrating to or from popular web hosts such as GoDaddy, BlueHost, SiteGround, HostGator, Hostinger, WP Engine, Flywheel, etc. all you have to do is select the web host;
OR
2) If your destination web host isn’t listed, you can select either the cPanel or FTP options.
The minimum prerequisites for the plugin to work are:
- The Migrate Guru WordPress plugin installed on the source site
- Your destination domain’s FTP or cPanel credentials (i.e. username and password)
- Your destination server’s IP address
- The directory in the destination where you installed WordPress
After you are done with the above requirements, migration feels like a breeze. All you need to do is enter your destination details, then click on ‘Migrate’ and voila. Your Migrated site is ready!
Let’s start with the step by step process
Step 1: Install and activate plugin on your source (original) site
The first step is to install and activate the plugin on your source site. For that, you need to open the ‘Plugin’ section which appears on the left-hand-side of your WordPress admin dashboard.
Click on Add New and search for Migrate Guru in the keyword search bar as shown in the image below.
Note: Make sure you have a domain to migrate your site on to your destination web host, and that you have WordPress installed on this domain.
Step 2: After the successful activation of the plugin, navigate to the plugin
On the plugin page, you will be able to see the names of all web hosts. Select the web host of your choice. In case you don’t see your web host listed, you can migrate your site via ‘cPanel or FTP’ as shown in the image below.
Step 3: Once you select the web host, you should see the following form:
For the purpose of showing a preview of the above-mentioned form, we have selected ‘Hostgator’ as the web host.
- A) In this form, you need to first enter your email address. Plugin will send you updates at different stages of the migration. You will need to enter the email to which these notifications will be sent to.
- B) Then enter the URL of your destination site–– This is the URL to which MG will move your site.
- C) To fill up the rest of the form, you will need your destination server’s IP address, cPanel username, and cPanel password.
Step 4: Once you have the obtained the Server IP address and cPanel details, fill them up in the plugin form
Note: If your site is HTTP Authenticated, click on ‘Advanced options’ and enter the username & password for the source and destination site. They are needed ONLY if either the site being moved or the destination site is ‘https://’ instead of ‘http://’.
If the URLs of either one begin with ‘https://’, they are HTTP authenticated. These credentials can be retrieved from the site’s server logs. Some website hosts offer apps in cPanel that make it easier to browse those logs.
Step 5: Once you are done with filling up the form, click on Migrate
Migrate Guru will send you an email notification confirming that the process of migration has begun. Meanwhile, you will also be taken to a screen that portrays the real-time progress of your website migration. The link for the same can also be found in the mail notification.
Once the migration process is completed, you will receive another email from plugin notifying about the successful migration, and the link to the migrated site.
Final Thoughts
If you follow the above instructions carefully, the entire process of migrating your website to any web host is simplified. Using Migrate Guru you can move or transfer sites as large as 200 GB in a breeze. Just enter host details & click Migrate. That’s it. One click Migration absolutely free!
We wish you all the very best. Happy Migration.
