Cómo trasladar WordPress a un nuevo alojamiento o servidor sin tiempo de inactividad

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1. Shane

   In the next step, Windows users need to go to Programs » All Programs » Accessories, right click on Notepad and select Run as Administrator. A Windows UAC prompt will appear, and you need to click on Yes to launch Notepad with administrator privileges.

   On the Notepad screen, go to File » Open and then go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. Select hosts file and open it.

   I’m having trouble with this step. Can anyone shed any light?

   Responder

   • WPBeginner Support

     Hi Shane,

     You just need to open the Notepad app as an administrator so that you can edit the hosts file.

     Responder

     Administrador

     • Shane

       Oh, just microfosft simple wordpad and then “run as administrator”?

       Is that all I have to do?

       Responder

2. Muhammed Shabeer

   Thanks for the wonderfull trick. Exactly the trick was intented to migrate Wordpress to new host, but I used for migrating from root to subdomain/subfolder. It done successfully with the plugin. Thank for sharing the trick.

   Responder

3. Kenneth Aycox

   Thank you for a wonderful product! worked perfect.

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4. James Crow

   Briliiant! Thanks so much, I’ve just moved a few sites without any problem at all.

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5. Max

   Sadly, this didn’t work for me either. I deleted all the website files as directed , uploaded to the installer.php file and package but when I went to website.com/installer.php I was served a 404 error: Not Found

   The requested URL /installer.php was not found on this server.

   I think it’s easier to just transfer the website the old fashioned way, as others have mentioned. No need for any scripts that might not work.

   Responder

   • Max

     Please disregard my comment. I later noticed the root folder was set to httpdocs. So created a folder, named it httpdocs and put the package and installer.php in there. Then the website.com/installer.php worked no problem. All went very smoothly thereafter.

     Responder

   • Nandan Jha

     Hello Max,

     Actually it did work for me in the end. I am guessing that you moved the installer and archive to your new host , correct ?

     Please look up the IP address from cpanel or equiv of the new host and try accessing via the IP address

     http://IPAddress/installer.php

     Responder

6. KB

   Seems like a good tutorial, but I had no luck with it. There are also a few steps/screens in the Duplicator sequence that were different from mine. The end result was, I got a 404 error upon clicking Site Login – Login to finalize the setup in Step 4 of 4 of the Test Site screen. This differs substantially from the above. Top right corner there’s a version number of 1.2.30. Fairly certain I have the most up to date version of the plugin. If I use File Manager to view the contents of public_html I don’t see the normal list of wp files that I think I should see aside from a wp-snapshots directory, a few web.config files, some installer files and the archive.zip…oh and database.sql. So something has clearly gone wrong, but I’m at a loss to understand what. So…there it is.

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   • Stephen Duffield

     Let me guess, you tried to move from a Wordpress.com site? Duplicator & Duplicator Pro wont work for wp.com sites. Nothing works unless you use one of two host sites that they recommend. Duplicator after lots of help, ended up giving me a refund.

     Responder

7. Rob

   Hey, Just wanted to say thanks for this tutorial. Went perfectly smoothly and would use this duplicator again

   Responder

8. Nandan Jha

   Great article.

   Friends, How do I make it work for an Addon Domain. I took a new plan with GoDaddy and now need to move my sites there. What entry do I make in my hosts file to navigate to install.php ? Thank you,

   Responder

   • Nandan Jha

     I tried it with my AddOn Domain. It worked for me over a couple of iterations. The thing to take care of is to supply the right ‘domain name’ at Step 3 (or Step 4). The default value which it picks is ‘primarydomain.com/addondomain’. Delete the default value and put addondomain.com

     Thanks.

     Responder

9. Sean

   I recently switched hosts and my original hosting plan has expired. I failed to create a back up before it expired. I do have a local copy of my site on my computer (I use Dreamweaver for FTP). Is there any way to recreate the site with the local files?

   Thanks.

   Responder

   • Dave Porter

     Hi Sean,
     Try using WayBack Machine – it takes snapshots of websites over time…
     You may be able to grab the source code, images etc… and recreate it from that. I’ve had to do that a few times for clients who have come to me after they have lost contact with their developer…
     HTH, Dave

     Responder

     • Miki

       Hi there,
       I have used the Wayback machine and was able to make a copy of my site. Unfortunately I have found myself involved with an unsavory company that had other plans for my business (selling their services on my site) without full disclosure in the beginning. I am now tasked with finding a new programmer to finish the site although it is in wordpress. I do not have wordpress at this time as I was not developing the site; however my understanding from these posts is that if I move the site to another host, I should be able to access wordpress. Is that correct?

       Responder

       • WPBeginner Support

         Hi Miki,

         Yes you can move an existing WordPress website to any other host.

10. Michael

    update…

    it works….
    be careful with IP address information…. you should read the information carefully…

    Thanks

    Responder

11. Michael

    No luck..

    After change the host file, my browser shows message:
    This site can’t be reached
    example.com took too long to respond.
    Search Google for idea inspirations
    ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

    I did flush dns, net stop, dan net start and restart my computer & modem, still not working…

    Responder

12. Navajo

    I have another question:

    In the text it says:

    “At this point, you’ve created a complete copy of your WordPress database and files on your new hosting server. But your domain still points to your old web hosting account.

    To update your domain, you need to switch your DNS nameservers. This ensures that your users are taken to the new location of your website when they type your domain into their browsers.

    If you registered your domain with your hosting provider, then it’s best to transfer the domain to the new host.”

    I thought that when i buy a new hosting space, i also and immediatly have to name a doman name. As in: buying a hosting space is always linken to buying a domain. So the new ip addres which i have uploaded my old site to, and which i have to link to my old doman name, already HAS a (newly bought) domain name.

    Or can i buy a hosting space, ánd get an IP address which i can use in this tutorial, without it already having a domain name?

    Regards, Navajo

    Responder

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hi Navajo,

      It is a common misconception. Hosting and domain name are two different services and you can buy them from two different companies. On the same page where hosting companies offer you to register domain name, they also show another option to indicate that you already have a domain name and you can continue without registering a new one.

      For more details please see our detailed guide on What is a domain name and how do domains work?

      Responder

      Administrador

13. Uldis

    this is really profound stuff. I was just scratching my head how to migrate client’s site without interruption while changing name servers. Eternally grateful!

    Responder

14. Shadat

    Hello, I face the database connection failed problem.

    can you plz help me? plz

    see the screenshots

    Responder

    • Dave Porter

      Shadat – this is quite an old article now – and you don’t give very much to go on – I would seek help from your hosting company, or get onto a WordPress discussion forum where there are active people who may be able to help you.
      But if you are getting a database connection error message, it is generally because the database name/user or password is incorrect
      I would try one of the backup tools like Duplicator and see if that works better for you.

      Responder

    • Slade

      Did you set up a new database and user on your new host?

      You must make sure the database name and user and password are all correct for the new host.

      Usually a database connection error is a simple oversight like a mispelling or something simple like that.

      Responder

15. Michael Goriany

    Thanks for this excellent tutorial
    If I have well understood, the hosts file (Step 4) is providing for 100% uptime only for the Webmanager but not for the public
    How can the DNS switchover time be shortened, or how can the downtime for the public be avoided ?

    Responder

    • Slade

      Editing the host file allows you to see your site at your new host. Until you update your dns nameservers the public will go to the old host.

      The time it takes for dns changes to updare (propagate) is not something that can be controlled. However this guide is correct in providing a no down time solution.

      What is happening on the backend that the public does not see is that your website is being hosted at two hosts. The nameservers tell the public which host they are viewing the site on. During the dns update process the users will still view the site at the old host until the propogation is complete.

      Once the dns change officially kicks in the public will then be viewing the site at your new host.

      Again, to provide the no downtime transfer you would need to change your host file on your local machine (tells your computer you want to view the site at the new host).

      This allows you to do the actual install of your website on the new host.

      Hope that helps

      Responder

16. Lydia

    i had to move a client’s site off our subdomain into their own hosting overnight and this REALLY REALLY saved my life! Especially as the domain needed to be repointed seamlessly! I only had trouble with the FTP, i dunno what was wrong with all the logins but i couldn’t get it working. Thankfully my hoster always has an awesome file manager on cpanel.

    So yes, very nearly seamless, i’m just testing out the contact forms now which seems to need the DNS switchover time in order to function properly…
    And one thing to add, Duplicator has changed the SQL database setup to Step 2 in their latest version, which really made me freak out a bit there.

    Thanks very much for the detailed and extremely godsent tutorial!

    Responder

17. Kurt

    I’m getting ready to follow this tutorial. One question: I am switching servers but also am switching domain names. Should I change my website address in the WP admin settings before running duplicator or after? (Does the order matter?) Thanks!

    Responder

18. Johel Fernandez

    This tutorial worked out perfectly by April, 2017. ¡Thank you so much!

    Responder

19. Ravijit

    Hey,

    I used this plugin so many times. even, once i used it for too. I really like this plugin but, the problem is it do not extract the big package. We’ve to manually unzip it or need to upload unzipped data to the new hosting.

    Any fix for that? Reply as soon as possible.

    Responder

20. Archit

    Duplicator doesn’t work properly with GoDaddy’s cPanel Linux Hosting service. Script gets terminated even if the settings in php.ini are changed. Please suggest what to do to make Duplicator work there? If not possible, what would be the best alternative?

    Responder

    • Hernan

      Hi Archit,
      I’ve just migrated a site to godaddy and it worked just fine. Which part failed?

      best
      Hernán

      Responder

21. Susan Taunton

    This GREAT tutorial successfully guided me through my very first migration of a Wordpress site to a different host! Especially life saving was the instruction about changing “sudo nano /private/etc/hosts” in Terminal – worked like a charm. wpbeginner.com has the most succinct, articulate and smart tutorials, which I have come to depend on.

    Thank you!!!!
    Susan

    Responder

22. Prinze

    hi, pls have been having issues uploading my site to s new server using FTP client, my hosting company tried to give tutorials on how to transfer with no result.
    the tutorials am getting from your site is abt using a duplicate plugin. my site is down, i can’t access my wp-admin to install the plugin.
    i use a backup plugin when my site is up so i have a backup file from the plugin i used n also i did a cpanel backup from my old server.
    pls, i need a tutorial hoe to upload my backup files to my new server, which one is best to upload?
    the plugin backup or the cpanel backup…

    pls help!

    Responder

    • Greg Draven

      What backup plugin did you use?

      Responder

23. Ritadrik Chowdhury

    Hi Sir,
    I am stuck up with 3rd part which is verification part. I have changed the permalinks and I can see the dashboard as usual but the site is not running. Whenever I am clicking on “TEST SITE” it returns error 404: File Not Found. I tried their help documents. Made changes as usual but no luck. Can you please help me out?

    Responder

24. saurabh shelar

    Hello Sir. I am saurabh from India. I love your website. I have a blog about software review. And I saw your posts and observe that you edited image in microscope effect. This is really fantastic. Can you please tell me how you do this or please make tuts for this please.

    Thank you.

    Responder

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hi Saurabh,

      Thanks for the kind words. There are actually tons of tutorials already. Try searching for how to add magnifying glass effect in Photoshop.

      Responder

      Administrador

25. Brad

    Hello,
    I have a situation where it would be ideal to have the database on separate hosting. Just because the host of the current site does not offer mysql. I cannot move the site (for a company)

    Can I install wordpress on current hosting in a sub domain and have the database on another host? I have never used anything except “localhost” in the wp-config file? Thank you!

    Responder

26. Sachin

    php not supported they are giving reason?? what to do??

    Responder

27. Samuel

    Does it work on addon domain?

    Because there is this step

    “Make sure that your root directory is completely empty. If you have WordPress installed in your root directory, then you need to delete WordPress first”

    While my primary domain is already up and running

    Responder

28. Cory

    This is a well put together article, nice job guys!

    Just as an FYI for users reading through the comments, any comment pre-dated 12-6-2016 does not pertain to the article above or the Duplicator plugin specifically.

    This article was originally written using the Backup Buddy plugin and has since been updated and rewritten using the Duplicator plugin. This should help clear-up any confusion should some of the comments not really make sense or refer to topics not covered in the article.

    Responder

29. Mark Rudder

    This is an excellent tutorial.
    I also believe this is the easiest and fastest way to to migrate a site.
    Migrating DB files and tables with phpMyAdmin is the long way around.
    Using Duplicator or BackupBuddy is way less work and you are less prone to mistakes that way.

    You need to change DNS no matter what method you choose, so that aspect can’t be counted as far as which method is best.

    Changing TTL settings to 1 hour (3600 seconds) as Dave Porter pointed out is the only missing piece of the puzzle. (even though that is not essential to success)

    Responder

30. Augusto

    Nice article, guys!

    I feel that the most critical point migrating a site to another host is the email service. If the default email solution provided by host need to be replaced, a lot of work will came.

    Anyone want to share your workflow to do this kind of thing?

    Thanks!

    Responder

31. Frans Kemper

    hello,

    Would this procedure also work for sub domains?
    I have an add on domain to transfer with about 10 related sub domains.
    Thank you

    Responder

32. Dave Porter

    A few days before I move a domain, I go into the DNS settings and change the TTL settings to 1 hour (3600 seconds), so that the site will move quickly (and do it overnight – so the new location will show for everyone in the morning)
    (I was expecting this to be mentioned in the article when I saw the title!)

    And to answer Dave’s question you can have as many entries in your Hosts file as you want – I have a reseller account with my hosting company and I’m often working on 2 or more sites I am working on that are located on a different server. You can’t specify a sub-directory in the entry – the one entry will point to all locations for that domain – to do what you want to do you are better using sub-domains – so for example example.com is the main location, then you can have play1.example.com as a sub domains that will have it’s own hosts entry.

    Responder

33. Harindepreet singh

    I think you should make a video or attach screenshots

    Responder

34. David in Mississippi

    Another article – directly related to this one, but sufficiently different to warrant its own separate article – would be “Replacing A Legacy Website with a Fully-Developed WordPress Website.”

    This has happened to me several times already. I have clients with older, legacy-type (non-WordPress) websites, and they ask me to convert their site to WordPress.

    I have two methods I use to do this, and one of them involves building the brand new WordPress site on a temporary development URL. When it is done, I then need to transfer it to the existing URL for the client.

    In other words, I develop it at DevelopmentSite, and when it is done, I then move it to ExistingLegacySite

    I should think it would be easier to do this than the procedure outlined in your article above, but it would still be helpful for you to do an article on this type of migration.

    Thanks.

    Responder

35. Dave

    Correct me if I’m missing something, but this ‘hosts file change’ will only work if you have a just one site on your plan at that new IP address. I have several low-usage sites I’m hosting on one plan. They are in subdirectories under phulic_html.

    So doing this:
    192.168.1.22 http://www.example.com
    in the hosts file will not specify which of your 5 sites to point to. And it seems the only thing you can specify in the hosts file is an IP address and a URL.
    You can’t do something like this:
    192.168.1.22/sitea http://www.example.com

    Am I wrong?

    Responder

    • Felipe

      I think this is correct, it won’t work for shared domains.

      It is better explained here: the voted answer says “If you have shared hosting, this will make your site inaccessible by direct IP. In a shared hosting environment, the host (GoDaddy) will have multiple websites living at the same IP address. When a browser requests a website, the server relies on the domain name to determine which of the many websites to serve. Without a domain name, the server has no way to tell what the browser actually wants so you don’t get your website. To avoid this situation, you will need a host to give you exclusive use of an IP address.”

      I think this should be highlighted in the article.

      Responder

      • WPBeginner Support

        Once you have added your domain name to your new host, your webserver knows that it is hosting domain name example.com and it’s root directory (Doesn’t matter if it is also hosting other domains as well). However, DNS servers take time to propagate so instead of sending your request to your new webserver, they will be sending users to old location for a while. The hosts file allows you to send your request directly to the new server. Hope this clears the confusion.

        Responder

        Administrador

    • Matt Davis

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you can type in (directly in the browser’s address bar) the IP address followed by a slash (/) and then the sub-directory of whichever site you’re trying to access. I would avoid changing the hosts file altogether. Most hosting companies I’ve used will also usually assign temporary URLs to each new website as well, so if that’s the case you could use that instead of the IP or messing with the hosts file.

      Responder

      • Niko

        That’s correct MATT. Temporary using the IP address instead of altering the hosts file seems like a better approach. However, both work fine.

        Responder

36. Vyse

    hello. good article but what about wp multisite?

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37. Tanisia

    I’ve tried for four hours to make these instructions work. The result? Now I can’t access my site at my old host. I tried following the directions on this 2-year-old article (will there be an update, since BackupBuddy has evolved?) and now everything is messed up.

    I used FTP to upload the files, and edited the host file as instructed, but the ImportBuddy PHP script won’t run. It just shows me the code. I tried contacting Bluehost for assistance, and they were no help. So I tried setting all my other settings back to where they were before I started this odyssey, and now I can’t see my site at all. Not the Admin panel, nothing.

    Responder

    • WPBeginner Support

      Tanisia, please refer to our guide on what to do when you are locked out of WordPress admin area.

      Responder

      Administrador

      • Tanisia

        I’m back in at my old host – my servers needed to re-propagage from Bluehost, and it took longer than I had anticipated. I’m still left with BackupBuddy not working the way it’s supposed to. Again, do you have updated instructions from 2014, since there have been several updates to BackupBuddy since this was written? When I did the Notepad update in Windows 10, it looked different from what was described here, so I couldn’t be sure if that trick worked.

        Thank you for answering back.

        Responder

38. Fahim

    If it was a primary domain , can i follow this Process? I need to move and that domain is Main/primary domain, how can i move,will u plz help me?

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39. Mark

    Just stuck i step 4, can i just simply addon domain and change dns in new host, ? Following that, C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. , there is nothing in my etc, nothing like hosts file, btw great tutorial easy to fallow, thanks

    Responder

40. Jacob

    I was hoping there would be an easier way to do it with a third party service, but I’m not about to shell out 80 bucks just to do that.

    Responder

41. Ash

    The backupbuddy steps in the new version have changed quite a bit. Nothing to be afraid of though. I was able successfully migrate from t1.micro on aws to t2.small instance. So far so good.

    Responder

42. David

    A few questions for you:

    1. Isn’t there a SIMPLE way to back up one site (themes, child themes, plugins, and post data), then restore it to another site?

    It truly should be as simple as (a) Backup To (dropbox mysite.zip), then (b) Restore From (dropbox mysite.zip).

    2. Is it possible, perhaps even EASY, to develop a client’s WP site on your development server, then use Backup Buddy (or some other backup/restore program) to migrate it to the client’s site?

    3. Does Backup Buddy, or any other backup/restore program you know of, give you the ability to restore to an existing WP installation? In other words, can you set it to restore everything except the WP core files?

    Thanks for this article.

    David in Mississippi

    Responder

    • WPBeginner Support

      Actually, in the article we have shown how BackupBuddy does exactly what you are asking for. You simply backup your site, download an archive file and an importer file. Upload these files to the new location and run the script. Hope this helps.

      Responder

      Administrador

    • Ash

      @David, with backupbuddy you can choose which files to leave out while backing up. So you can leave out the core WP files.

      Responder

43. Robert

    hi guys,

    A friend just make me a new wordpress website and uploaded it to my hosting account. Now, I want to change the domain and hosting account and want to upload the website to the new hosting account.
    My friend sent me the archive with all files of the website including database. How is possible to upload the website to my new host?
    I appreciate your answer.

    thank you

    Responder

44. Ricardo Clarke

    I actually just went through this process yesterday and need to transfer another site today. This is hands down the most thorough walkthrough I’ve seen. The 4 to 48 timeframe really helped ‘cause I thought something went wrong, but the transfer just needed time to propagate across the interwebs.

    Responder

45. WPBeginner Staff

    As soon as you figure out that your new domain has regained the search positions for your old site. We hope that you have setup 301 redireccts on old domain otherwise search engines wouldn’t know that your old content has moved to the new domain permanently.

    Responder

46. WPBeginner Staff

    What’s the shorter way of doing this?

    Responder

    • Sebastien

      Hi there, thanks for your tutorial, here’s an other way of doing it… free.

      1. Tools > export posts and pages from admin panel. If you also need the DB phpMyAdmin export tables from the db. Import them in the new db. Check for the extension of the tables to be the same (_wp for instance)

      2. edit your virtual host config file, add what follows between your server {}

      allow your_public_ip;
      deny all;

      3. Access the site by its ip. (make sure you set the ip of your new server instead of the url in phpmyadmin > wp_options > siteurl and home options)
      4. Tools > import posts and pages
      5. Change your DNS records at the old host.
      6. Done. Use another plugin like UpdraftPlus to backup for free.

      Responder

      • Ash

        Tried UpdraftPlus. Didn’t do anything at all.

        Responder

47. Rachel Charles

    Clean and modern and Easy to modify!

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48. Kate_H

    Great guide. I can confirm these steps work brilliantly as I recently moved a 5 year old WP site from one domain to another domain and swapped web hosts as well.
    The only difference I did was redirect the old site to the new site via the .htaccess as I wasn’t migrating the old domain name over at the time.
    Out of curiosity how long would you leave it before deleting all the old content from the old domain and setting up a permanent URL redirect via your registrar?

    Responder

49. zimbrul

    I really hate Backup Buddy. In 80% of cases I got errors and their support is not that good. I’d rather move a site with Duplicator free WordPress plugin

    Responder

    • WPBeginner Staff

      Zimbrul, Duplicator is a nice plugin too. However, we have moved many WordPress sites using BackupBuddy and it has always worked flawlessly for us. That’s why we recommend it.

      Responder

    • Jim

      Fully agree. Duplicator has never let me down and I have backed up and installed to many websites to count. No need for a paid plugin.

      Responder

50. Dennis Does Cricket

    That’s a ridiculously long winded way of doing it.

    Responder

    • Jonathan

      I was looking for this. This already assumes knowledge of FTP etc. so why not just:
      1. Copy over all files (download locally, upload to new server).
      2. Export the DB (you can use Migrate DB free version if you can’t access the old hosts phpmyadmin or such). Also, if you’re moving from a different domain it replaces the urls etc.
      3. Create a new DB on your new host, import the DB.
      4. Transfer the domain.

      Same result, no fiddling with installer scripts and such.

      Responder

      • Matt Davis

        This is how I would do it.. In addition, you would also need to edit your wp-config.php file with the new DB info (Specifically the database host entry, as I believe importing the old database will create the same database name, user and password on the new one). Also, I would avoid editing your hosts file and instead either use the IP address directly in your browser’s address bar followed by your sub-directory name (if needed) or use the temporary URL most hosters provide when a new account is set up.

        The steps in this article are good for someone that doesn’t want to touch configuration files in their Wordpress folders, or who want an all-in-one solution that gets them their site and DB in one step.

        Responder