Hello,
There is a section of the “Moving WordPress” page in the codex:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress#Moving_to_a_New_Server
Thanks,
Lucas
Okay…I read the article, but now I need clarification. To me, my “old site” is the existing website on the 3rd party web host server and my “new site” is the website I created on my laptop that I wish to move to the 3rd party web host server to replace the existing website.
So step 1 of “If You Don’t Care Whether Your Old Site Works” instructs you to edit wp-config.php of your OLD site to suit the new server, but my “old site” is on the server I want to use. Step 2 directs you to change the URL of the old site to that of the new site, but I want the new site to have the same URL of my old site.
Am I misunderstanding the instructions? Or do I have the concept of moving a newly created website on my laptop (not public on the Internet) to my 3rd party web host server via ftp or other methods to replace/remodel my existing website totally misconstrued?
As you know that the site your built locally “works”, that is, all the themes, plugins, media etc. are where they should be, the version numbers “match”, why take a chance with what shape the existing site is in; just replace it, and here is what I would do:
On the “existing WP site”
– move the contents of the current site to a new sub-folder for “safe keeping”
– upload the complete contents of the local site to where those files were
– create a new, empty database and import the export of the local site into it
– edit the siteurl and home fields in the wp_options table with the live site’s URL
– edit the wp_config.php file that has been uploaded to the live site with the new database connection credentials
– log into the now “new” live site and install and run this plugin to update the URLs:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/velvet-blues-update-urls/
– upload and run this script to update any URLs that are stored in the DB as serialized strings (which the above plugin doesn’t handle):
https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
– go to Settings > Permalinks and just re-save
Done! … have done this often and takes about 5 minutes 🙂