Migrating a self hosted site to WordPress
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I asked this question a couple of months ago: “How can I migrate http://cutrightallen.com/newsite to simply http://cutrightallen.com (an existing site)? I created a new site for someone using a WordPress template and need to publish it with an address that is currently being used. “
This was the answer: “Because your site is self-hosted with a different provider, support staff at WordPress.com do not have access to your site’s files or the ability to provide support for your current issue. “
So . . . now my question is this: How do I allow WordPress to host my site? I don’t want it to be self hosted anymore. I want WordPress to host it, but I don’t know how to do that.
Thanks!
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That site would be great on WordPress.com! I can help walk you through how to set up a new blog, and move your content over.
The first thing you should do is decide whether to use your robinart username or if you want to create a separate account from robinart.
If you want to start a new account (username), then log out of WordPress.com and go to https://signup.wordpress.com/signup/
If you want to use your robinart username, then go to http://wordpress.com/ and click the “My Blogs” link at the top. Then click the “create another blog” link on the left.
Once you have a new blog setup, find the dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes, and select the Twenty Twelve theme (since that’s the one you’re currently using for http://cutrightallen.com/newsite/special-events/) or you could pick another thing if you like. To move the content you are ready created, use the Pools >Export and Tools >Import pages in each blog dashboard.
If you get stuck or have any questions along the way, reply back here.
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Thanks so much! So helpful!!!
I do have another question. The new blog/site needs to have the address http://www.cutrightallen.com. If you take a look at that address, you’ll see that it’s old and lame and needs to be replaced by the content I created using the Twenty Twelve theme.
http://www.cutrightallen.com is hosted by someone other than WordPress. I want it to be hosted by WordPress. Is that possible?
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http://www.cutrightallen.com is hosted by someone other than WordPress. I want it to be hosted by WordPress. Is that possible?
It totally can! What you should do is create the WordPress.com version first and get it all setup how you want. Then you can get control of the cutrightallen.com domain name (you’ll do that through the registrar where it was originally purchased) and follow these instructions to map it to the new blog you create:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/Note that the “www” part is not used at WordPress.com, but if you mapped your domain here, the http://www.cutrightallen.com version of the domain would always still work and it would redirect to cutrightallen.com.
For the mapping part, your next task would be to get control of the domain through the registrar where it was purchased (if you don’t already have that).
DNS records for domain mapping can get tricky to update sometimes, but if you follow the instructions carefully, it shouldn’t be too brutal. If you have any questions as you go, you can just post them here later as well.
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Thanks again!! Quick question: What does “get control of the domain through the registrar where it was purchased” usually entail? I created http://www.cutrightallen.com/newsite for an architect firm of which I am not employed. When you say, “get control of”, what do you mean?
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Only the domain name owner gets to control where the domain points to.
To get control, you just have to be the one who made the purchase and have the username and password to log in to wherever it is that you purchased it from. Do you remember where/how you originally setup the cutrightallen.com domain name?
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Oh OK. I can do that. It wasn’t me, but I have the authority and the passwords. Thanks! I’ll give it a shot tomorrow. Please don’t close this discussion, because I might have some more questions once I get started. Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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OK, so now I’m being told that I can’t do this because the cutrightallen.com/newsite needs to continue on the Colorado Valley servers . . . something to do with email and servers. I don’t know. So, I guess I just need to figure out how to replace http://www.cutrightallen.com with http://www.cutrightallen.com/newsite, but not here on WordPress. Now I’m back to square one. I’ve created a site, but can’t get support on it from anyone because it’s not hosted by WordPress, and the folks at Colorado Valley aren’t familiar with WordPress and say that they are scared to try it. The firm I work for wants this to happen soon, and I don’t know how to make it all work.
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You might consider trying a consulting service such as WerkPress. Site hosting migration support is listed on their services page: http://werkpress.com/services/
If you would prefer to do it yourself though, the WordPress.org community does offer support on a volunteer basis and they’re great! Just post as mush detailed, relevant information as you can when you write a help request and then send it in to http://wordpress.org/support/
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If you can convince the domain owners to do it, it is possible to map a domain to a WordPress.com blog and still map the email to other servers. What that means is you can keep the same email servers and just switch the web hosting servers. This would work if email was the only concern and they didn’t mind using WordPress.com for the web hosting part.
Here are the related help pages in case you want to send them along and just check to see if they’re willing to take that route:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/add-email/add-other-email/ -
Oh wow. That’s really helpful. Thank you so much. I’m going to forward this to them. :-)
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Hey there! Me again. I just got this email from the guy at Colorado Valley. He tried to sort all this out, earlier, to no avail. He mentioned to me on the phone just now that he is more familiar with Joomla than WordPress and that in Joomla, there is an Akeeba extension that is really helpful in this realm and is wondering if WordPress has a similar plug-in. Does that ring a bell?
Here is the content of the email I received from his this afternoon:
I was unable to properly migrate the website to the root directory. I found these instructions on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sydfh3s84js but they only partially worked.
I logged in the server vis SSH and moved all the files from /newsite to the root directory. Created a backup of the WordPress SQL database in phpMyadmin and downloaded it to my computer. I modified the database adjusting all the path statements pointing to /newsite. Dumped the current tables and restored the updated database tables. Along the way I found something the video didn’t mention which was .htaccess file with re-write statements in the /newsite directory which I also migrated to root.
After this the website came up but the graphics and layout did not display correctly. At this point I restored everything to its original state and the website works as it did.
Thanks again!!!!!
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I don’t know about Akeeba, but the first place I would advise looking for documentation about migrating a WordPress.com site would be at this link: http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress
I logged in the server vis SSH and moved all the files from /newsite to the root directory.
This is not the right thing to do. Changing the directory WordPress is setup requires some extra work. Have him review the link above first, and if he still needs help after that he should ask at http://wordpress.org/support/ which is a volunteer-based support forum for the WordPress.org project. There are tons of helpful people there. Let him know to include all the relevant details including a list of steps of what he has done so far if he can remember them, the domain names in question, what he has changed, and exactly what the error messages say if he’s seeing any error messages.
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