Comments on: Moving WordPress to a new domain or server

By: P.J.G.

P.J.G. — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:25:47 +0000

P.S. I am working with WordPress 3.2.1, so your instructions still apply, if anyone is curious.

By: P.J.G.

P.J.G. — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:15:39 +0000

Steve, Thanks for your speedy response. I changed the pathnames, incremented the s: values by 3 (in my case), and imported the .sql file again. It worked perfectly! Thanks so much.

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 06:50:48 +0000

@PJG, just drop all the tables in the local database (assuming you’ve not done any changes you want to keep), do the search / replace in the SQL file as directed in this post, then re-import.

Once again, instructions are provided as-is. Always back everything up before you do anything, and if you’re stuck, try hiring someone :)

By: P.J.G.

P.J.G. — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:08:27 +0000

Hi, before I start, I want to make sure these instructions apply to my situation. I installed WordPress on my WAMP server (localhost) so I could create a development environment.

Everything worked fine and I was able to work on a child theme for days, until yesterday, when I tried to import a backup (.sql) of the database from the live site so I could get a copy of the actual content from the live version. Luckily, the site does not include a lot of content yet.

Now all my links point to the live server instead of localhost and I can’t view my CSS edits as I make them if I click any of the links.

Where should I be doing the search and replace? In the .sql file? Can I reimport it into my localhost database once the edits are done and will it overwrite the previous import? Will that work, or do I need to do anything more?

There could be some things in the content that might be fine to continue to reference the real site. Not sure.

My wp-config and other PHP files appear to be fine.

Do you instructions apply to me?

Thanks.

By: Beto

Beto — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:26:00 +0000

Hi, thanks. I came to this tool http://seoredirect.com that helps to check if a URL is redirecting properly in terms of SEO, I think just check 301 Redirect header in HTTP response, but it pretty useful.

By: Minisite Design

Minisite Design — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 04:06:26 +0000

Glad that we found this post. We’re in the process of moving some of our wordpress based sites to a new dedicated server and I believe your tutorial will really come in handy. Gonna bookmark your post for future reference. Thanks again!

By: CArl

CArl — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:55:04 +0000

Thanks for the tip on serialized data. That just saved me no end of time.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:05:41 +0000

Finally someone gave us a clear, direct explanation on how to move WordPress to a new domain! It worked like a charm, finally… Thanks!

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:54:48 +0000

Ray, the answer is “probably”. But as when the advice was first posted, YMMV, hire someone if you’re not sure what you’re doing :)

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 01:16:30 +0000

Hi Steve,

I just stumbled across this post as I have been looking for comprehensive directions on how to do this. I see this was written in Aug of 2009. My question is would these directions still be applicable to the latest version of WP 3.1?