How to Migrate Your WordPress Site with WordPress Duplicator

Sometimes migrating website files from one host to another could be tedious but with the duplicator plugin all that stress is removed. Duplicator is a free and powerful WordPress plugin that enables someone to quickly create or clone a copy of a WordPress website. In this guide, I will be showing you how to migrate your WordPress site with WordPress Duplicator. Please see How to Install and Configure WordPress on Your Windows Computer Using WAMP SERVER, How to Install and Setup WordPress into a cPanel and Configure Your First WordPress Theme.

This duplicator plugin works by grouping all website files into a single portable zip file that you can refer to as a package. This plugin is efficient and effective in migrating an entire website from an old host to a new host.

You can read How to Fix WordPress Error “The Link You Followed Has Expired”, How to scan WordPress Websites With WPScan For Security Vulnerabilities, and How to Backup and Restore your WordPress Files and Database.

Steps to migrate WordPress Site with WordPress Duplicator

1.   Prepare your Migration

The first thing you need to do is setting up and preparing your new hosting account. In as much as it’s a migration that you want to do there is need to take inventory of your website resources and decide what are the things are going with the migration. A duplicator will allow you to select some website assets for your package and leave unwanted files out.

2.   Install Duplicator Plugin

Open your WordPress and select Plugins > Add New 

On the Search plugins box search for “Duplicator – WordPress Migration & Backup Plugin.” Install and activate the plugin. After its activated, you will see a new Duplicator option in your dashboard panel.

Please see Fix WordPress Error “The Link You Followed Has Expired”, how to Migrate Veeam MSSQL Database to a new MSSQL Server, and how to Backup and Restore your WordPress Files and Database.

3. Start building your package.

Once the Duplicator is activated you can click Create Your First Package

or you can click on Duplicator > Packages, then click Create New in the top right corner. Give your Package a name and click Next.

Duplicator will now begin to scan your site for any potential issues. If any issue is found then you will need to resolve it before you continue.

After the scan is successfully completed click the Build button so that Duplicator will create your website package. This process can take some time depending on the size of your website.

Scan Completed

Building the Package

4. Download your Website Package.

After building the file then select the One-Click Download option. This downloads both your backup or Archive file and the installer.php file to your device. The installer.php file will be used to install your website package on your new host.

Also, see “WordPress site on Azure: How to create a website hosted in Azure“, and how to Create Hyper-V Virtual Switch

5. Create a backup file.

It is very important you make a backup of the package and keep somewhere while you continue with your migration. This should be done in other to avoid any data loss as a result of the migration.

6. Create a database on your new host web server.

Create a database on your new host web server to place your WordPress files. You can create the database via the cPanel databases section.

7. Upload your Duplicator package to your new host web server.

After setting up your database you can then upload your Duplicator package. Please note that its not compulsory to install WordPress on your new host before using the plugin because duplicator will handle all for you.

Follow these short steps to upload the installer and install on the new host

1. Upload your site backup file and installer file to your site root directory.

2. Launch your website. Follow the duplicator installation wizard.
3. Enter your database name, the username and password that you created. In the Host field enter “localhost”.

4. Click Validate. If the test is successful, you will see Pass.

5. All files will be extracted, and you will be able to see your website on the new host server.

Accept the terms and click Next. Click OK on the Install Confirmation page.

FAQs on Migrating WordPress Site with WordPress Duplicator

I hope you found this blog post on How to Migrate Your WordPress Site with WordPress Duplicator. Interesting and helpful. In case you have any questions do not hesitate to ask in the comment section.