[e1: Updated on 23 Feb 2015. I had to repeat the entire process! The Nameserver was pointing to the old hosting provider]
I had to migrate my blog from the current provider it went down several times. I chose GoDaddy as my domain is also registered with them. Because my blog is based on WordPress, I chose the WordPress package. GoDaddy provides a migration tool, which makes the process much easier. There are still things to prepare.
GoDaddy will need an FTP site, user and password. The problem is the Path value. As you can see from the screenshot below, the value has to be Undefined. That actually means the “root” directory. I did not know that, and GoDaddy Support did not provide advice that it had to be at the top directory. I had to create a new ID, as the existing ID has a password that I do not know. In the directory field, type “/”, and this would set it to root directory. [23 Feb update: I could have modified the password of the existing ID. There is no need to create a new ID]
You also need to know your WordPress admin. The screenshot below shows that.
Once you did the above, you are ready to migrate. You click the Migrate choice.
It will take you to the screenshot below, where you fill it with the info that you’ve prepared earlier. Notice that GoDaddy provides you with a temporary host name, which is great.
Clicking the submit button will get you the screenshot below.
If you check with the All Hosting Accounts page, it will show you that your site is being updated.
You then get the status below. If your site is pretty small, this is done within the 30 minutes.
You can actually check what it looks like. This is what it looks like before it’s updated
And… after it’s updated! So it’s basically all copied! Thank you GoDaddy!
Now, because of the temporary address, I need to migrate the hostname too. This is not easily shown in the migration wizard. If you do not do this step, the domain is not associated with the migrated content. Click the “Add Domain” button.
Since my domain is with GoDaddy, I can easily just choose from a drop down.
Once you submit, you can see that the status is now reflected, as you can see below:
I gave it around 1-2 hours, and it’s done!
This is much easier and a lot less scary than what I thought 🙂
23 Feb 2015 update
…. and that was the beginning of my nightmare. Little did I know that the DNS is still pointing to www.freehosting.com. This is because the Name Servers are not modified by GoDaddy migration tool. The tool does not inform that you need to do it. Please read this for details.