Importing blog from backup files

It looks like they send you a backup of the FILES in the WP root folder and not a DATABASE backup.

They need to go into the backend of the site and go to dashboard->tools->export, export teh posts and send you that file which you will use with the WordPress Import plugin to add it to your site

Before you do anything else DO A DATABASE BACKUP of teh new site.

My guess is they sent you all the files from the root folder where WP was installed. They did not include the folders and it looks some of those files are from an old release of WP. For example, wp-atom.php hasn’t been in the WP root folder from before version 3.6.1 (the oldest version I currently have quick access to)

There are two parts of a WP site, the files and the database. Ofg the files the important files are what’s in the wp-content folder and the wp-config.php file. The wp-content folder contains all media that has been uploaded to the site along with all plugins and themes (not as important as the media).

The database contains all the posts, pages, category names, users, This is the DATA that makes up the site. Without it, you are up the creek without a paddle.

You can get a MySQL export, but that would give you too much (all the users from the old database) or you could get the XML file of posts from the other site – created via dashboard->tools->export.

What ever you do, DO A DATABASE BACKUP of the new site. Don’t do anything else until you have a database backup so if something goes wrong, you can get back to where you are today.

second, create a playsite where you can test installing the blog from the old site and verify it before doing it to the live site. Good luck.

And if this is over your head, I urge you to hire someone who knows what they are doing to do this, it will probably save you time and money in the long term.