How To Migrate A WordPress Website To A New Host Using WPvivid Backup Plugin

WPvivid is quickly growing into an extremely popular and feature-packed backup plugin for WordPress users. But do you know what else it is good at? Site Migrations! In fact, it offers a super simple one-click site migration option, where it can help you migrate your website between a development environment to different domains & servers.

You will get access to a super intuitive UI designed to be as beginner-friendly as possible. On top of that, the plugin provides integration with a lot of third-party cloud storage services, so you have a lot of options to choose from. But the best part is that it is completely FREE!

Now, for the purpose of this read, we will be going over a hands-on tutorial showing you step by step how to migrate a website to a new hosting provider using WPvivid backup plugin. If you have been planning to change hosting providers and feel concerned about the migration process, then this guide will definitely help you out!

So with that being said, let’s get on with the tutorial:

Setting Up The Migration Process

You will need to install the plugin on both websites - the one which you are migrating, and the one where you are migrating to.

Therefore, you will need to install WordPress on the new host server and then install the plugin over there. Make sure that the new host only has WordPress installed along with WPvivid and no other plugin or theme (except the default theme that comes with every WordPress installation).

Installing The Plugin

To install the plugin, you will need to login to your WordPress dashboard > Plugins > Add New. From here, type in WPvivid Backup Plugin in the search bar. Then as shown in the image below, Install the highlighted plugin and then click the Activate button.

WPvivid is now installed on your website.

Remember, you need to do this for both your websites.

Generating Migration Key

With the plugin installed, head on over to the WordPress Dashboard on your NEW hosting provider. From there, go to the WPvivid Backup from your left-hand sidebar. You should notice a toolbar at the top. From here, navigate to the Key section.

Here, you will need to Generate a Key to begin the migration process. The plugin uses the key to validate the migration between the destination and the source.

Do note that the key will expire after a certain amount of time. However, you can specify the expiration time for the key according to your preferences. It is set to 8 hours by default.

Here is an example showing how the Migration Key looks like.

Copy this to a notepad, and keep it safe. Now onto the next step.

Initiating The Migration Process

Congratulations, you are half-way there!

With the plugin installed on both the WordPress websites and the site migration key ready in hand, it's time to head on over to the source website. From here, you will again need to go to your WPvivid Backup from your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the Auto Migration section.

Here, you will be given a field where you need to paste the Migration Key and hit the Save button.

The plugin will now process the key and analyse the server status. If everything checks out, then you will get a message stating the connection is okay and you can begin the migration process. You will also see the new domain name on screen - where you want to transfer your website.

Now, below the field where you pasted your Migrated key, you should notice a couple of options asking you what you want to transfer to the new host. Since you are doing a complete site migration, select the Database + Files option, and hit the Clone then Transfer button.

The plugin will now automatically start the migration process by first creating a backup archive or your database, and WordPress files and then start transferring it to the new host. This can take about a couple of seconds to several minutes depending on how many files are being transferred as well as the network connectivity.

The Final Steps

With the WordPress files and Database successfully transferred to your new website, again go to the WPvivid Backup option and then visit Backup & Restore. You should see that all the transferred files have been saved as a new backup from the source website.

You will be given options to either download a copy of the backup, delete it, or restore it to your new website. As you can imagine, to complete the migration process, you will need to hit the restore option.

This will bring up two new options. You can either “restore and replace the original domain” if you are planning to transfer to a new domain. Or, you can “Restore and keep the original domain unchanged” if you plan to migrate your old domain to the new host.

We also have a quick tutorial showcasing “How to Point Your Domain to a Host” which can be useful if you plan to keep your old domain.

Now, hit the Restore button on screen and voila - your old site will be migrated to the new destination.

Some Important Things To Keep In Mind

Now, during the entire site migration process, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind:

• During the migration process, make sure that you have deactivated or uninstalled any 301 redirect plugins, caching plugins, and even any firewall or similar security plugins. These can interfere with the migration process.
• The auto-migration functionality is not compatible with the Local by Flywheel environment. In that case, you will need to manually migrate your website.
• If you are facing connectivity issues, then you will need to download the source website backup to your local storage and upload to your destination website to restore it.

In addition, you can get more details about how to backup a WordPress site here and try using other migration plugins.