Move Wordpress Development Site to Live Hosting

Overview

This guide will step you through the process of moving a Plesk managed WordPress instance from a subdomain to your new site. This can be used when you have developed a new version of your site within a subdomain and need to make it live to the world.

 Please note that this article is now out of date, please see Plesk Obsidian – Cloning a WordPress Site

Instructions

Before starting, we highly recommend you run a Plesk Backup.

1. Login to your Plesk server and select the development domain.
2. Click on Website Copying:
   
3. Leave Website in Plesk selected, then select the new “Site name” for the new location:
   
4. Click Ok. This will begin the process of copying all the WordPress files across.
5. Under the existing subscription, select Database at the top right:
   
6. Select the associated database and then click Copy:
   
7. Enter a new database name then click OK. You should now see a copy of the database under the existing subscription.
8. Click “Move to Subscription”:
   
9. Then, select the new subscription from the drop-down list:
   
10. This will move the database to the new subscription. Select the new subscription from the left-hand menu.
11. Select Databases again from the right-hand side menu.
12. If the database isn’t assigned to the site, select it from the drop-down menu:
    
13. Then, click on “Create” beside the database name to create an new database user:
    
14. Then, enter the new username and password:
    
    Note: We highly recommend using the in-built password generator to ensure you have a secure password.
15. Before clicking on OK, note down the username and password. You’ll need these to update the WordPress configuration. Then, click OK.
16. Return to the subscription / domain screen, then select File Manager:
    
17. Click on the “wp-config.php” file, then select the “Edit in Code Editor” button at the bottom of the page.
18. Scroll down until you find the DB_NAME entry:
    
19. Update the configuration for DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD to the new settings you have created. Double check the formatting to ensure there are no syntax errors. Then, click OK to save the file.
20. At this stage, your website should be functional. Double check everything thoroughly, including checking for errors in the error logs (we have a guide for that here).
21. You may also require a URL rewrite within the WordPress database. A separate article will be available for this soon.

We also recommend moving the old site, as leaving an old instance of WordPress on your system can be a potential security risk.

If your site is hosted with Conetix, please don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance with any migrations or moving from staging to production for your WordPress site.