WordPress Migration to New Server: Complete Step-by-Step Guide

SSH into the old server and compress your entire WordPress root:

ssh user@old-server-ip
cd /var/www/html
tar -czf /tmp/wordpress_backup.tar.gz .

This produces a portable SQL dump of every table:

mysqldump -u DB_USER -pDB_PASSWORD DB_NAME > /tmp/wordpress_db.sql

Replace DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, and DB_NAME with the values from your wp-config.php. If your database is large, add --single-transaction to avoid table locks on InnoDB:

mysqldump -u DB_USER -pDB_PASSWORD --single-transaction DB_NAME > /tmp/wordpress_db.sql

ls -lh /tmp/wordpress_backup.tar.gz /tmp/wordpress_db.sql

On Ubuntu/Debian:

apt update && apt install -y apache2 mysql-server php php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-zip

For Nginx instead of Apache, replace apache2 with nginx and configure a PHP-FPM pool.

mysql -u root -p
CREATE DATABASE new_wp_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'new_wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'strong_password_here';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON new_wp_db.* TO 'new_wp_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

WP-CLI is essential for the serialized search-replace step later:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
chmod +x wp-cli.phar
mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
wp --info

rsync -avz --progress user@old-server-ip:/var/www/html/ /var/www/html/

Flags explained:

• -a — archive mode (preserves permissions, timestamps, symlinks)
• -v — verbose output so you can see progress
• -z — compress data in transit to reduce transfer time
• --progress — shows per-file progress

A two-pass approach minimises downtime. Run the first pass while the old site is still live to transfer the bulk of data, then run a delta sync at cutover to catch only files that changed:

# Pass 1 — bulk transfer (run while old site is live)
rsync -avz --progress user@old-server-ip:/var/www/html/ /var/www/html/

# Pass 2 — delta sync at cutover (only changed/new files)
rsync -avz --progress --delete user@old-server-ip:/var/www/html/ /var/www/html/

The --delete flag in Pass 2 removes files on the destination that no longer exist on the source, keeping the two directories in perfect sync.

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/
find /var/www/html/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
find /var/www/html/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

scp user@old-server-ip:/tmp/wordpress_db.sql /tmp/wordpress_db.sql

Or use rsync for reliability on large dumps:

rsync -avz user@old-server-ip:/tmp/wordpress_db.sql /tmp/

mysql -u new_wp_user -p new_wp_db < /tmp/wordpress_db.sql

Alternatively, use WP-CLI if WP is already configured on the new server:

wp db import /tmp/wordpress_db.sql --path=/var/www/html

mysql -u new_wp_user -p new_wp_db -e "SHOW TABLES;"

You should see all your WordPress tables: wp_posts, wp_options, wp_users, etc.

nano /var/www/html/wp-config.php

Change these four lines:

define( 'DB_NAME',     'new_wp_db' );
define( 'DB_USER',     'new_wp_user' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'strong_password_here' );
define( 'DB_HOST',     'localhost' );

This is the most important step that most guides skip or do incorrectly. Never use raw SQL REPLACE() to update URLs in WordPress. WordPress stores widget settings, theme options, and plugin configurations as PHP serialized strings. A raw SQL replace changes the URL string length but does not update the byte-count prefix inside the serialized wrapper — this corrupts the data silently, breaking your widgets and theme settings.

WP-CLI's search-replace command understands serialized data and re-serializes correctly after every replacement:

# Dry run first — see what will change without modifying anything
wp search-replace 'https://old-domain.com' 'https://new-domain.com' --dry-run --path=/var/www/html

# Execute the real replacement
wp search-replace 'https://old-domain.com' 'https://new-domain.com' --path=/var/www/html

# If you are also changing www vs non-www, run it for both variants
wp search-replace 'http://old-domain.com' 'https://new-domain.com' --path=/var/www/html

Expected output shows a table of affected rows per table, for example:

+-----------------------+-------+--------------+------+
| Table                 | Column| Replacements | Type |
+-----------------------+-------+--------------+------+
| wp_options            | option_value | 47 | PHP  |
| wp_posts              | post_content | 312 | SQL |
| wp_postmeta           | meta_value | 8  | PHP  |
+-----------------------+-------+--------------+------+

wp cache flush --path=/var/www/html
wp rewrite flush --path=/var/www/html

curl ifconfig.me   # run this on the new server

Suppose the new server IP is 203.0.113.50.

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add this line at the bottom:

203.0.113.50   yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

On Windows, the file lives at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts — edit it as Administrator.

Your browser will now resolve your domain to the new server IP without any DNS change. The old site remains live for all other users. Test thoroughly:

• Home page loads with correct content and images
• Internal links navigate correctly (no redirect loops)
• Admin login at /wp-admin works
• Contact forms and checkout flows function
• SSL certificate is valid (green padlock)

Delete the line you added and save. Your browser returns to resolving the domain via real DNS.

Log in to your domain registrar and change the A record for yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com to the new server IP. Since you lowered the TTL to 300 seconds in the pre-migration checklist, propagation completes in about 5 minutes for most users.