Migrating WordPress Hosting from GoDaddy to BlueHost

Are you wanting to improve your WordPress website? If you are then take a look at this article right here to find out what you can add to make it a high-performance site! One thing you can do to improve your site is to change hosting provider as some providers have better security and less downtime. Today, we will be discussing how you can migrate from GoDaddy to BlueHost.

Requirement:

You can easily and inexpensively get started with Basic Managed WordPress hosting from GoDaddy. However, when it comes to the Renewal of the Hosting service you are left with only choice of paying minimum of USD. $4.99/month on one year renewal. GoDaddy has discontinued its famous discount codes on all of the Renewals. To save yourself in later year of hosting you may require to chose an alternate hosting provider.

BlueHost has been one of the best and recommended hosting provider for WordPress hosting. They offer Basic WordPress USD. $2.95. So, once you purchase WordPress hosting you require to migrate/move all your existing website content from GoDaddy to BlueHost. This article explains all the steps involved in getting your WordPress service migrated and successfully running up.

Further, if you already have your domain registered with GoDaddy and have paid for it, you can even than have your website domain on GoDaddy to render/serve WordPress contents from BlueHost.

Solution:

There are multiple ways you can move WordPress contents from one hosting to other hosting. In this article, I’ll be using the UpdarftPlus WordPress Plug-in.

1. Before making any changes, as a first step take a backup of your existing WordPress website on GoDaddy
   1. If you don’t already, please install UpdarftPlus WordPress Plug-in and have it activated
   2. Click on UpdarftPlus > Current Status / Backup Now > Click on “Backup Now” button
   3. This will creates separate compressed .zip files for each of below
      1. -db.gz
      2. -plugins.zip
      3. -themes.zip
      4. -uploads.zip
      5. -others.zip
      6. and a backup log
   4. Once backup is successfully created, download the backup files to your local disk through FTP
      1. Logon to GoDaddy through SFTP
      2. Navigate to /html/wp-content/updraft folder
      3. Copy over all the latest backup files listed above
2. Restore the WordPress backup files on your BlueHost WordPress hosting
   1. Copy over the WordPress backup files to your BlueHost WordPress hosting through FTP
      1. Logon to BlueHost through FTP
      2. Navigate to /public_html/wp-content/updraft folder
      3. Copy over all the latest backup files from your local disk to this folder
   2. If you don’t already, please install UpdarftPlus WordPress Plug-in and have it activated
   3. Click on UpdarftPlus > Current Status / Backup Now > Click on “Existing Backups” button
   4. If you don’t see your uploaded backup files, then click on Rescan local folder for new backup sets
   5. Verify the Backup Date and ensure all below listed backup files are located successfully
      1. -db.gz
      2. -plugins.zip
      3. -themes.zip
      4. -uploads.zip
      5. -others.zip
   6. Click on Restore button under actions column,
   7. In the UpdraftPlus ‐ Restore backup prompt, select all items including Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Others, and Database and Click on Restore
   8. You’ll receive below warning which is expected, click on Restore
      1. Warning: This backup set is from a different site ‐ this is not a restoration, but a migration. You need the Migrator add‐on in order to make this work
   9. This will restores all your Database and uploaded files to your BlueHost WordPress installation
3. Find External IP of your WordPress hosting on the BlueHost
   1. Logon to your BlueHost cPanel
   2. Click on Domains > DNS Zone Editor > Select your domain from the list
   3. Locate host record named “@” under Zone File Records section.
   4. The IP mentioned for @ would be your WordPress hosting external IP Address
4. At GoDaddy, update your existing Domain host record (Public/External IP) to point to the External IP of your WordPress hosting on the BlueHost
   1. Log On to your GoDaddy Account >
   2. Navigate to Manage My Domains > Click on your existing Domain > Click on DNS Zone File section
   3. Update the @ record under “A (Host)” section with your BlueHost WordPress external IP Address
   4. Click Save Changes
5. At BlueHost, Assign your existing domain on GoDaddy to your BlueHost WordPress Hosting using below steps
   1. Logon to your BlueHost cPanel
   2. Click on Domains > assign > complete the 4 steps involved
      1. In step 1: enter domain, Select “Use a domain that is not already associated with your account.” option and provide your GoDaddy domain name here
      2. In step 2: verify ownership, it will automatically verified that the domain is properly configured to the external IP of BlueHost WordPress Hosting
      3. In step 3: choose addon vs. parked, select “Parked Domain”
      4. In step 4: choose addon directory and sub-domain, no action is required
      5. Click on “assign this domain”
6. Now launch browser and load your website, voila, it just comes up fine