Updated: February 24, 2023
Cloning a website to a new destination is a fairly easy task and one that is needed for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons you may want to clone a WordPress website is you were working on it in a development environment and now are ready to move it to a primary domain or you are migrating your website from another provider to your account here.
BEFORE PROCEEDING: You need to install WordPress wherever it is you are going to be cloning this site to/ the destination you will be cloning to. You can follow this easy tutorial for cPanel http://blog.webhostpython.com/2019/11/22/how-to-install-wordpress-through-softaculous-the-correct-way/ or use whatever method to install a new WordPress instance. Simply install WordPress using all of the default options since none of this matters and will all be overwritten after we clone things over to it. Don’t worry about remembering the admin username/password, etc etc, of this new WordPress install you are doing.
AFTER completing the above, then follow these easy steps:
- Log into your WordPress wp-admin for the site you are going to clone/the source WordPress installation and go to “Add new plugin”. Install the plugin “Migration Guru”. This is hands down the best cloning plugin we have found and the simplest. Install and activate it:
2. Put in your email address and agree to the terms of service to be able to continue, then click “Migrate Site”
3. The next page will ask what web host you’re migrating to. It will show a bunch of corporate sites, mostly all under the EIG umbrella. Select “FTP”
4. Fill in the FTP information of the account.
Destination URL: This is the target you’re cloning to.
FTP Type: FTP
Destination Server IP: This is the IP address of the server you’re copying to. You can find this information by logging into cPanel,DirectAdmin or Plesk, it will tell you on the right handside. Or by looking at your account information email that you received when you signed up which tells you what your IP address is
FTP Username/FTP Password: This is your FTP username. If it’s cPanel, DirectAdmin, or Plesk, it’s the cPanel/DA/Plesk Subscription Username and password.
DIRECTORY PATH: This is important. If you’re on plesk, simply type in “httpdocs” or If it’s cPanel/DirectAdmin type in “public_html” (Without quotes)
Then scroll all the way down and click on migration. That’s it! It will now migrate the entire WordPress site over for you.
When it’s done, you will be able to visit the site it was cloned to and log in using the same exact wp-admin login information that you were using before on the source website.
