My capstone class this semester built a client web site using WordPress. Design of the site needed to be well under way prior to the client acquisition of a hosting account. To progress with the site design and template construction we opted to create the site on a development server and then move it just before going live on the client’s hosting site. The development server was owned by one of my students and housed through goDaddy.com.
After the site design was completed, it was time to move the site, and corresponding database, to its new location. Moving the site files was easy, simple copy and paste of template files. Since the new site had a fresh installation of WordPress, we did not need to worry about the configuration file. To copy the database, I exported it to an external text file with the intention of a simple import into the production server. The instructions on how to do this are explained at the following links on the WordPress Codex:
- Moving WordPress – http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress
- Backup the database – http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database
Oh, if only it were that easy. Over the next several posts, I will describe what I ran into and how I overcame the obstacles. I will split the articles into the obstacles that I had to overcome.
- Obstacle: The SQL export text file was too big to import
- Obstacle: The database value pointed to the wrong site URL