Moving a WordPress site from one host to another isn’t an easy job. It can be a pain if you don’t have any technical skill. Either you’ll have to learn the technical stuffs or you’ll have to hire someone to migrate your WordPress site to the new host.

But there is a better way, Using ManageWP. ManageWP makes it insanely easy to migrate WordPress blog from one host to another.

ManageWP is both a website and plugin for managing all WordPress sites from one powerful dashboard. It helps you not only to migrate WordPress site but also to update, backup and manage your sites.

Recently I’ve transferred my blog from HostGator to Bluehost. Over first few months, I’ve been having tremendous downtimes with HostGator. So I decided to change my host.

In this post, I’ll be sharing how to move a WordPress site from HostGator to Bluehost using ManageWP. Here are the steps we are going to take.

1. Get a Bluehost Account
2. Add Your Site to ManageWP
3. Backup Your Website
4. Assign Addon Domain
5. Install WordPress
6. Change Your DNS
7. Upload Backup to Bluehost
8. Re-add Your Website to ManageWP
9. Upload Your Clone

It might seem to you that you have to do a lot of works to move your WordPress blog to Bluehost. But it’s easier than you think. Just follow the below steps. Before going to the tutorial, I’d suggest you to move your site on a day like weekend when you get less traffic.

1. Get a Bluehost Account

Bluehost is recommended by WordPress.org. If you decided to switch your hosting to Bluehost, you made the correct decision. Bluehost is highly optimized for WordPress.

To move your site to Bluehost, you need to create an account on Bluehost. Normally Bluehost offers WordPress hosting for $5.99 per month. But you can get Bluehost WordPress hosting only for $3.95/month by using this Bluehost Link.

Read: How to Sign Up for Bluehost (With Discount)

2. Add Your Site to ManageWP

Now you need to create an account on ManageWP. Then login to your account. Once you’ve logged in your account for the first time, a pop-up will appear allowing you to add your site. Enter your website URL and Admin Username & Password if you don’t have the ManageWP Worker Plugin installed and activated.

You can also install the Worker Plugin manually if you don’t want to give your Admin Username and Password.

Click on ‘Add to ManageWP’. If your site adds to ManageWP properly, it will show “yourdomain.com – Successfully added.”

3. Backup Your Website

You need to take a backup of your WordPress blog before moving it to another host.

Click on the website name from left sidebar and select Backup Now.

A pop-up will appear allowing to backup your site. You don’t need to configure anything. Just make sure Backup Type is selected as Full (files+database). Click on ‘Next’

On the next step, check ‘Keep backups on the site server’ and click on ‘Create Backup’ button. Once the Backup is complete, it will be shown under ‘Recent Backups’ widget.

Download the backup on your computer.

4. Assign Addon Domain

If it’s your primary domain (the domain that you used while signing up for Bluehost ) on Bluehost, you can skip this step.

Otherwise, you need to create an Addon domain to your new host. Login to your Bluehost cPanel and scroll down to Domains. And click on ‘Domain Manager’.

Then click on ‘Assign’ from the header. You’ll find 4 steps there.

Step 1: Enter your domain name under ‘Use a domain that is not already associated with your account.’

Step 2: Verify your ownership by providing EPP code. You can get EPP code from your current domain registrar. If your domain is on HostGator, login to your HostGator cPanel and click on your Domain Name from ‘Manage Domains’ and a domain overview will be popped up.  Copy EPP Key from there.

 

Step 3: Choose Addon Domain

Step 4: Create a New Directory.

Click on ‘Assign this domain.

5. Install WordPress

Once you’ve added your domain to your hosting account, now you need to install WordPress on your Addon domain.

From Bluehost cPanel, click on ‘Install WordPress’ under Website.

It’s easy to install WordPress on your account. You can do it yourself. Just click on ‘Install’ button.

Then select your domain name where you would like to Install WordPress. It also allows you to select WWW or non-WWW version. Personally I prefer non-WWW version, So I’d suggest you to do the same.

Click on ‘Check now’ button. If everything is OK, it will ask you to install WordPress. In advanced options, give your Site Title, Admin Username, and Password. Click on ‘Install Now’

It will show ‘Your install is complete!’ on the header. That’s it.

6. Change Your DNS (Domain Name Servers)

Now you will need to change your name servers. Login to your domain registrar to update your name servers. You’ll have to collect your name servers from new hosting. In case of Bluehost, it will be ns1.BlueHost.com and ns2.BlueHost.com. The screenshot below may not be the same what you see on your registrar. If you don’t know how to do it, contact with your domain registrar.

It may take few hours to change your DNS.

7. Upload Backup to Bluehost

Now you’ll have to upload your backup file via FTP to your new host.

If it’s your primary domain name (domain that you used while signing up), you don’t need to create FTP account. Just login to Bluehost cPanel and go to ‘FTP Accounts’ from Files and scroll down to ‘Special FTP Accounts’. Collect your FTP information by click on ‘Configure FTP Client’.

If it’s not your primary domain, you’ll need create an FTP account from your Bluehost cPanel. Click on ‘FTP Accounts’ under Files.

On the next page, enter Login (yourdomain), Password and Directory. Directory will be “public_html/yourdomain”. Then click on ‘Create FTP account’.

Scroll down and collect FTP information by click on ‘Configure FTP Client’.

Once you’ve collected your FTP information, now you need to login to FTP Client.

At first, download FileZilla FTP Client from here.

Before going further, change your backup file’s name to backup.zip.

Open FileZilla application and  enter Host (FTP Server name), Username & Password and click on ‘Quickconnect’ (Follow Screenshot). It may show some errors if you’ve just created your FTP accounts. Wait and try again.

Once you’ve connected to your server you will find your computer files on the left side and server files on the right side. From left side, select the folder where you kept your backup file. From right side, select ‘/public_html/wp-content’ in case of the primary domain and ‘wp-content‘ in case of another domain.

Drag and drop the backup file from the left side to the right side.

It will take some to upload the backup. Make note of the location of the backup.

8. Re-add Your Website to ManageWP

Once your nameservers have updated, remove your original site from ManageWP and add it again.

To remove your site from ManageWP, just select site from left side menu in ManageWP dashboard and click on Remove.

To re-add the site, Click on ‘Add Website’ button located at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

And add your website like before.

9. Upload Your Clone

Now click on ‘Clone’ from left-hand menu. A pop-up will appear.

Choose Backup URL as the source of copy and enter Backup File URL. It should be something like http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/backup.zip

Click on ‘Next’.

Select an Existing Website on Your Account as your location. Make sure to insert your current admin username and password.

Click on ‘Next’. It will show the source and the destination you chose for the Clone. Click on ‘Clone’ and process will start.

After a few minutes, you’ll get a notification that everything went okay.

That’s it. Your site has been moved to Bluehost.

Once you’ve tested your site on the new server, delete the backup file from your new host for security reason. You should also delete all the files from your old host.

Over to You

I hope this step by step guide helped you to move your WordPress site from HostGator to Bluehost with no downtime. If you face any issues, do let us know via comment.

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