Since Made2own Sucks, I figured I’d write a post on how to change web hosts if you use the WordPress CMS. I’m not saying this is the best way to do it but this was how I did it and it worked.
1. Find a new web hosting provider. There is a big forum all about web hosting providers where you can get lots of information about different web hosting providers.
2. Download your files from your web host using some sort of FTP Software. I use FileZilla since it’s a great program. Be careful not to pull too many files at once because on some servers, they ban you IP if you pull too many files down too quickly.
3. Export your WordPress files by going to Tools and then clicking on “Export.”
4. Export your SQL database (I was told to do this, but I never needed to import them later on, but better safe than sorry)
5. Change name servers of your domain, i.e. ns1.madeown.com to whatever the name servers are for your new web host, they should be in an e-mail they sent you after you signed up with the service.
6. Install WordPress on your web host by transferring all of your original WordPress files to the server and then follow the WordPress Installation process.
7. Assuming you’ve installed WordPress correctly, you can then click on Tools and then hit “Import” and find your old exported file and bring that in. All your posts and such will be as they were. You will have a “Hello World” post from the new installation but for the most part, everything should be as it was.
8. You should be done!
Some issues that I had in the process was some of the files I had made didn’t seem to convert correctly to the new server. For me this was mostly the theme layout everything else was basically the same. You might want to transfer over your old header.php and other files if you found the WordPress installation changed your header.php.