Moving Your Web Site to a Different Host

There may come a time that you decide you need to switch from your cur-

rent hosting provider to a new one. There are reasons why someone would
have to do this — either you’re unhappy with your current provider and

want to move to a new one, or your current provider is going out of business
and you’re forced to move. Transferring from one host to another is a reality
that some Web site owners must face, and transferring an existing Web site,
with all of its content, files, and data, from one host to another can seem a
very daunting task. This section of the chapter should make it easier for you.

You can go about it two ways:

✦ Manually through backing up your database and downloading

essential files

✦ Using a plugin to automate as much of the process as possible

Obviously, using a tool to automate the process for you to make it easier is the more desirable way to go, but just in case you need to do it manually, in the next section of this chapter, I provide you with the instructions for doing it both ways.