Often when I am doing a wordpress installation conversion from a joomla site I install wordpress in a subdirectory and work on it in the background while the old website remains live. When I am ready to swap I follow the following steps:
- Via FTP rename old website to take it offline (eg: websitename.com.au.old) – cheaters backup.
- Create a new directory for the new website. (recreate websitename.com.au, a clean directory)
- IMPORTANT before moving any files. Login to WordPress Admin > Settings > General. Change the WordPress Address and Site Address fields to be the root domain name. (remove the sub-directory). Need to change both the WordPress address (URI) and Site address (URL).
- Save changes but don’t try to look at site now – it won’t work.
- Move the contents of the wordpress directory into the new root directory.
- Log into your WordPress Admin in the new location (ourdomain.com/wp-admin. Note, you may need to go to yourdomain.com/wp-login.php)
- If you are using Permalinks, go to the Administration > Settings > Permalinks panel and update your Permalink structure to your .htaccess file, which should be in the same directory as the main index.php file.
- Run Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin or the search and replace tool to fix any instances referring to old path name (eg: images etc)
- Go to Appearance > Menus and check menu links/update if needed.
Support Notes Relevant to this process:
From WordPress – Moving WordPress
Moving from Subdirectory to the Root
Tools Needed:
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