Updating WordPress Database After Website Move

Boy life sure would be easy if WordPress used relative URL’s throughout the menu and post content but that simply isn’t going to happen, they’ve made that clear. Changing the URL in the admin Settings would then be all you need to do, making moving installations a breeze. Not the case, we should stop crying about it.

There are a few plugins that will migrate WordPress without much fuss. Our favorite is All in One Migrate. The free version only allows migrations of 500MB or less.

If you’re forced to do a manual transfer, all you’ll need is a couple additional steps. We’ll assume you changed the URLs in your admin settings. Now simply log into your hosting cpanel and get to PHPMyAdmin, then find your database. If you need your database name then head over to your file manager and locate the wp-config.php file in the website’s main directory. It’s there under db_name.

Once you’ve located your website’s database in PHPMyAdmin, select SQL (see image below) to enter the following statements, replacing the new and old URL’s with your values. Be sure the table names match up, yours may have the prefix wp_, or more likely something like wp_123_. Just be sure the table names match when you execute this SQL. Be sure you’ve updated your wp_options table – this is already updated if you changed the URL in your admin Settings.

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.oldurl','http://www.newurl');

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.oldurl', 'http://www.newurl');

UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value,'http://www.oldurl','http://www.newurl');