Well, I have had a win. May not sound much to some but after losing three WordPress sites and having to start over, had I done this before I would still have them.

Let me explain.

I had built several sites with a WordPress installer. Now at the time this was great as all the plugins etc were there in the installer and it only took a very short time to have the blog set up and adding content.

After learning how to transfer a WP site to a new web host, I decided to do just that with these sites.

Well, lost the first one, blamed it on the operator. I then transferred another site, not installed originally with this installer and the transfer went without a hitch.

Long story short, every site installed with this installer would not transfer over, there was always a hitch. These sites had page rank from #1 to #3, so not only lost the content etc but the page rank as well.

Okay, sad story over!

My win! I have successfully transferred another of these sites. Not the downloading and uploading via FTP, backing up and saving databases etc just simply exporting and importing via WordPress.

I used the Export option on the original site and saved it. You find Import and Export under Manage in the versions pre 2.7 and in the latest version of WordPress that’s 2.7 it is under Tools.

Quote from WordPress.
This is what happens
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“When you click the button below WordPress will create an XML file for you to save to your computer.

This format, which we call WordPress eXtended RSS or WXR, will contain your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.

Once you’ve saved the download file, you can use the Import function on another WordPress blog to import this blog.”

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I still had to point the DNS to the new web hosting, (mine, that was the idea), installing via Fantastico, adding the plugins etc and configuring the site and then simply going to the Import option, selecting WordPress from the various options and finding the export file on your computer.

Before importing the file, make sure your new WP site is set up the same as the old one.

So apart from the setting up of the site, that was the only time consuming part, it went very smoothly.

It still takes time to download and upload the files via FTP, only thing is, you can do other stuff while this is happening, whereas, the setting up, plugins and configuring etc needs you to actually do the tasks.

At least I have the content on the new web hosting and all’s right with the world, at least, the changing websites over to new hosting world.

Take care

Carmel