Go to PHPmyadmin. Export your database. It's an SQL file. Save it somewhere. Open the file up in notepad. Do a search and replace string. To do this, when your file is open, hit ctrl+F on your keyboard. A dialogue box opens. Choose the search and replace function.
search for 'localhost/whateverthenameofthedirectoryyou'vebeenusing' and replace all instances with 'xxx.yournewwebsiteaddress.xxx'. Save the file. Now your database should be all primed to import to the new server.
Upload all wordpress files from your working copy of the website. That's the wp-admin, content, includes and all the miscellaneous php files that are in the main wordpress folder. Copy them to your new hosting in the public html folder.
On your live server, open up the wp-config.php file in notepad. you're going to have to change some definitions here for the database, user, password and hosting.
You will see some parameters that look like this below:
define('DB_NAME', 'mysitedatabasename');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'root');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'strongpassword');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
/** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */
define('DB_COLLATE', '');
end:
database name, if you have shared hosting and possibly multiple domains available, you'll need to name your database starting with your hosting account sign-on name. ie; myhostingsigninname_mydatabasename
same with user name - myhostingsigninname_myusername
Make a strong password or someone may hack you either for fun or if your site is gaining popularity.
hosting. Some hosting companies use the parameter 'localhost' and some may have you put your hosting ip there which you can see in your cpanel.
When you have changed these parameters, save the file back to the same place you got it from, should be in your root directory, main directory of your public HTML.
NEXT.
sign into hosting. go to PHPmyadmin or sometimes there is a database wizard. Either way, you need to chose 'create database.' You want to create a new database with the same name, user and passwords as you just edited into your wp-config file. When you get the message you have successfully created the new database, choose the import option, compatible SQL type 40 or 323. Now your new database is ready to go and the site should start to come up.
My experience is once I get to this part, I still need to go through the site, activate plugins and just kind of check it out. I've only done it a few times but it has never transferred perfectly. All easy fixes.
With this information and brother G, you can get it done. Good luck.
