WordPress Site Migration Made Easy: Advanced Methods To Avoid Mistakes

Moving a WordPress site may appear to be a highly stressful and daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Whatever your motivation for relocation—whether to a totally new hosting company, a total domain name change, or to relocate from a staging environment still under development to a fully operational live server—site relocation is a serious and significant task that needs to be tackled and executed with extreme caution and care. One misstep in this sensitive procedure, and you’ll be left with serious problems on your hands, including broken links, possible data loss, or infuriating downtime—none of which are precisely enjoyable experiences for anyone involved.

Fortunately, with the right methods and with the effective tools out there, you can ensure a smooth and problem-free transition. In this complete guide, we will cover advanced techniques and methods that will enable you to avoid the expensive blunders that occur during migration.

Why Migrate a WordPress Website?

There are a number of reasons to relocate a WordPress site:

• Switching to a better-performing host can make a big difference in the speed and performance of your site.
• Transition from staging server or local server to a complete live environment
• Domain name change to accommodate rebranding
• Combining multiple WordPress installations

Whatever the motivation, careful planning and execution are a must.

Pre-Migration Checklist

Before the actual migration process, there are a number of important things you need to do in preparation for what awaits you:

• Backup your entire site: These are all your files and database. These can be automated using tools such as UpdraftPlus or BlogVault.
• Update themes, plugins, and the core of WordPress regularly: It ensures everything is current and functioning properly, and it is important not to have any compatibility issues arising during the migration that might be experienced.
• Deactivate caching plugins: These plugins can interfere with the migration process in a major way and can lead to issues like broken layouts or even the non-display of certain pages.
• Notify stakeholders: If you are experiencing regular users of your website, schedule the migration during off-peak hours and notify your staff in advance.

Advanced Migratory Methods

Below are some of the advanced techniques professional developers utilize to make WordPress migrations seamless:

1. Install a Migration Plugin (With Staging Options)

While most plugins offer migration capabilities, choose one that is capable of transporting from live sites to staging sites as well. Plugins like WP Migrate, All-in-One WP Migration, or Duplicator Pro allow you to have duplicate sites with minimal effort from your part. It is always best to make sure that the plugin you choose can handle large databases and large media libraries, especially if your site is content-heavy.

2. Command Line Tools (WP-CLI)

For the more seasoned and experienced in the use of technology, WP-CLI, or WordPress Command Line Interface, is an incredibly powerful and versatile tool at your disposal. With it, you can export and import databases with ease, search and replace URLs, and flush the cache with command-line scripts. Not only is using WP-CLI time-saving, but it also gives you more control and freedom over the whole process and enables a more personalized and streamlined process.

3. Manual Migration with Database Tuning

If you feel at ease and confident with using cPanel or SSH, then you can migrate your WordPress site fairly easily by hand:

• You may export the database either through the phpMyAdmin utility or by running the MySQL command-line utility.
• Download all the files via FTP or File Manager.
• You may go ahead and upload the needed files and thereafter copy the entire database to the new hosting company.
• Modify the wp-config.php file to reflect new database credentials.
• Use a search-and-replace tool like Search Replace DB or WP-CLI to efficiently replace and alter URLs and file paths so that everything is in its place and is working as needed.

Manual migration is more convenient but does allow for human error—double-check every move.

4. Strategically Switch DNS

After the migration process, there is a requirement that you should perform the steps necessary to update your DNS records so that they will correctly point to the new server location. Instead of switching it instantly at once, you should modify your Time to Live (TTL) value to a lower time at least 24 hours prior to the actual migration. By so doing, you will enable a faster propagation of the DNS when you finally go ahead to modify the A record, which will guarantee a smoother transition.

5. Testing and Validation Process

After migrating, thoroughly test your site before you think of the process as complete:

• Make sure all the internal links are working properly and taking you to the target without any problem.
• Verify contact form, popups, and third-party integration.
• Test the performance speed of the test site and observe how efficiently the caching mechanisms work on the newly deployed server.
• Check for SSL installation to allow correct HTTPS activation across the site.

6. Performing SEO and Analytics Verifications on Migration

Save and maintain your valuable SEO rankings by the following ways:

• 301 redirects must be implemented when changing from older to newer URLs, especially when the web addresses have been changed.
• Resubmitting your XML sitemap to Google Search Console
• Checking that tracking codes (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.) are still active.

Common Errors to be Avoided

Even when employing the newest techniques and most sophisticated approaches, the following errors and blunders can continue to devastate and sabotage your migration process completely:

• Failure to back up your site before any adjustment or modification could have serious repercussions.
• Failing to verify file permissions and ownership on the target server
• Omitting faulty links or image URLs
• Not testing the site on mobile and various browsers after migration.

Avoid these pitfalls and you will significantly reduce post-migration troubles.

Let the Experts Handle the Pressure: Digicorns Will Help and Lend A Supporting Hand

We are experts at hassle-free WordPress migrations with no data loss, downtime, or SEO problems at Digicorns. Whether you are migrating to a superior host, rebranding using a new domain, or migrating from a staging server to live, our professionals will have your site migrated smoothly and efficiently.

Ready To Make Your WordPress Site Migration Stress-Free?

Get in touch with Digicorns today and let us do all the complex technical work and problems for you so that you can concentrate your time and effort on developing and expanding your business successfully.