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The full step-by-step guide is here. Make sure to ask if you have trouble following it:

  1. Create a new hosting account.
  2. Remove the domain from your old account.
  3. Get a clean copy of WordPress. Do not use softaculous.
  4. Add the domain to your new account.

Make sure not to install WordPress at this step.

  1. Go to your old DB and check the wpmi_options table. Tell me what is the value of active_plugins, template, and stylesheet.

This is used to determine what plugins and theme you are using right now. It would be better if you can figure it out yourself, but if not, I can help.

  1. Extract WordPress locally.
  2. Download the required plugins (usually from WordPress.org) and put the extracted files into wp-content/plugins.
  3. Do the same for theme, and put the files into wp-content/themes.

This is to make sure the pages won’t broke due to a missing plugin or theme.

  1. Create a new DB inside the new account.
  2. Remember the following info of the new DB:
    • DB Name
    • DB Host
    • Account Username
    • Account password.
  3. Import the DB:
    1. Open phpMyAdmin of the new DB.
    2. Hit “Import” tool in the tab.
    3. Upload the backup you just got (hopefully you got it!) and restore from the backup.

This will transfer the old DB data to the new DB.

  1. Copy the wp-config-sample.php into wp-config.php. Then change the following lines (All the info is from the new DB and new account) :
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define( 'DB_NAME', 'DB Name' );

/** Database username */
define( 'DB_USER', 'Account Username' );

/** Database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'Account password' );

/** Database hostname */
define( 'DB_HOST', 'DB Host' );

and this line:

$table_prefix = "wpmi_";
  1. Upload all the content to the new account, inside the htdocs folder.

The final structure should look like this:

htdocs
    - wp-admin
    - wp-content
    - wp-includes
    - index.php
    - ...

Make sure to use a desktop ftp client like FileZilla, instead of the online file manager.

  1. If you previouly have an active SSL certificate for your old site, you’ll have to go to “Free SSL Certificate” and either reinstall or request for a new certificate.

Now after all these steps, if everything goes well, you should be able to see your site without images.

Then it’s the boring job: fix the images.

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