Hi and welcome to Learn WordPress, parttwo of migrating your website to a new
hosting account. In part one, youlearned how to migrate your WordPress
website to a new hosting provider whilesetting up a new domain name. In this
session, we'll be learning about thedifferent steps needed to complete the
website migration while keeping thewebsite's existing domain name.
By the end of this session, you shouldbe able to describe the steps necessary
to move your website to a new hostingcompany when you want to continue to use
your existing domain name. Describe howthe internet knows where to look for
your website. And describe the stepsnecessary to update the location of your
website so that visitors arrive at theversion of your site that is in your new
hosting location.
Migrating your WordPress website to anew hosting company and keeping your
existing domain name is very similar tomigrating to a new hosting provider and
establishing a new domain name. Whenkeeping your current domain name, there
is a different selection you must makeat the beginning of the process, and one
additional step at the end of themigration process.
When you establish a hosting accountwith a new company, one of the first
questions that you will be asked in thesetup process is whether you are
establishing a new domain or whether youalready have an existing registered
domain name. If you already have adomain name and wish to keep using it
you just check that option and enteryour existing domain name into the
appropriate box.
The new hosting company will then set upyour hosting account with that entry as
the primary domain will also provide youwith the information necessary to sign
into your hosting account and willprovide you with a temporary website
address to access the website that youset up in the new account. Logging into
your new hosting account will allow youto install WordPress. And the temporary
website address will allow you to accessyour new WordPress Dashboard.
Once you have accessed your newWordPress installation, you can
duplicate your current website in thisnew hosting account using the same
process that you learned in part one ofmigrating your WordPress website.
Basically, you install your preferredmigration plugin in this new website and
then use that plugin to import the fileon your computer that you downloaded
when you exported your website in itsold location. When that import is
completed, you will have duplicated yourexisting website and your new hosting
account.
You now have your website located in twoplaces on the internet, in your old
hosting account and then your new one.However, the internet only knows about
your old hosting account. Telling theinternet that your website is in a new
location is the extra step that you mustaccomplish in the migration process.
Website addresses are actually a seriesof numbers or numbers and letters called
an Internet Protocol address, or IPaddress. These are examples of IP
addresses using versions four and six ofthe numbering protocol. The domain names
that we use in our browsers like cnn.comor espn.com are human readable names
that are paired to a specific numeric oralphanumeric IP address that is part of
the internet's Domain Name System orDNS.
When you type a domain address into yourbrowser, your request to go to that
location first checks with the domainname system through Nameservers to look
up the numeric IP address associatedwith the human readable address that you
said you want it to visit.
Your website in the new hosting accounthas a different IP address from the one
in your old hosting account. Until youupdate the information in the DNS or
Nameserver system. The Internet stillthinks your website is at its old
address.
You update your website's location bychanging the Nameserver settings of your
domain. These settings are located inthe account where you registered your
domain. If you registered your domain atthe same time that you established your
old hosting account, then that hostingprovider most likely is your domain
registrar. Most hosting providers arealso domain registrars and offer bundled
services as were described in theprevious lesson. Remember hosting and
domain registration are two separatefunctions, even though you may have
initially set up both with the samecompany at the same time.
When you established your new hostingaccount, your hosting provider sent you
several pieces of information. One ofthose pieces of information is the
Nameserver settings of your new account.If you do not have that information
handy, you can log into your new hostingaccount and find it in the area where
you manage your domain settings. They'lllook something like this. There are
usually two of them.
You then take the new hosting accountNameservers settings, access your domain
registration account. Insert these newNameserver settings in place of the old
ones and save the change.
The length of time it will take for thischange to propagate through the internet
can vary. Typically it takes 24 to 48hours a law in some cases, it may take
up to 72 hours.
If you have made your website in thisnew hosting account identical to the
site in the old hosting account it maybe difficult to notice when the
Nameserver changes become effective. Onetrick you can use is to make a small
wording or style change to the websitelocated in the new hosting account. Then
in a day or two, navigate to the websiteusing your domain name. If you see that
change on the page you will know thatyou have successfully completed the
migration and you're looking at thewebsite and your new hosting account.
Congratulations!
There are a few other things to considerabout your website migration.
One is email accounts. The emailaddresses associated with your domain
are part of your hosting account. Whenyou change hosting companies, you'll
have to set up those email addresses inyour new hosting account. Some hosting
companies will migrate all of your emailaccounts for you when you set up a new
account.
If you added or updated content on yourlive website, after you made that
website migration export file, thosechanges will not appear in your new
website. The exported website file was asnapshot of your site when it was made.
Any more recent changes to the site willhave to be manually duplicated in your
new site.
Remember that you now have service rulesfrom two companies. Your domain
registration will be handled by thecompany where it is registered. And
using the example above that will beyour old hosting company. You will also
have a hosting account renewal with yournew hosting company.
The process of changing name serversettings or changing domain registrar's
varies between companies. It's best tolook through the help or support
sections of your hosting account to findthe specific steps to take in your
situation. I hope you've enjoyedlearning just a little bit more about
website migrations. Join us again onLearn WordPress and continue WordPress
learning journey.