I recently transitioned the host for this website - including the wordpress blog. It look a bit of work – but it was surprisingly successful. Some of the key points were:
- I always keep my domain names separate from my hosting provider – so that if I have any issues with the web host (or want to switch) it’s easy. I simply changed the name servers of my domains to make the switch.
- My new host – fatcow – had an automated wordpress install – so I used that. Part of the plan was ensuring that I re-installed all my various plug-ins and their settings (by going to the old website and printing off configuration screens). See this article for help.
- The key then was to “export” the xml of the old site and re-import it in.
- I couldn’t get my theme working quite right – but it gave me an excuse to use a new one (key point – for dynamic sites the theme is separate from the content – which is an advantage).
- The only other major thing was that the images didn’t quite work right even though I copied them back up. The issue was that lightbox was confused as the images weren’t stored correctly (in terms of wordpress understanding them). Therefore the most time consuming part was to re-do all the images in the posts.
The reasons I went with fatcow were:
- A client of mine was using it – so I had a little familiarity.
- fatcow allows for multiple sites on the main account – which my existing host didn’t. Therefore I could split out my domains (andrewluvtrains.com, godlovesandrew.com) into different websites – instead of all making them be a subset of this site (which never worked quite right).
- Frankly it was cheaper than my old host – especially as they raised the price of reseller accounts up quite a bit recently. I didn’t think I was getting the value I wanted – much less what my clients should get (almost 2 to 1).
- I’m now liking the automated install scripts – as it’s actually a lot easier than installing myself (and they get the PHP setttings, etc. correct as it’s part of their install script). They have the ones I mainly use – wordpress, gallery, forums, etc. – so it’s right down my alley.
So again the key points were:
- Be prepared – backup, research, make lists, etc. of all you existing stuff.
- Create as much as you can on the new host first.
- Flip your nameservers from one host to the other. If something doesn’t work right you can flip back temporarily.
- Know where your stuff is – so that you can fix (like I had to do with the images). I kept all the images I had uploaded in a folder for my website – so I knew where they were….
