GoDaddy WordPress Hosting – Site Migration

NOTE: This article references an older hosting product. I recently wrote a review on the new & improved GoDaddy Pro WordPress Hosting, released in October 2017, along with updated pricing and an honest look at GoDaddy’s commitment to WordPress. You should check it out.

As many of you are already aware, GoDaddy has entered the managed WordPress hosting space. For a hosting company that is known for its inexpensive, shared hosting plans, many are wondering about the performance of their new WordPress hosting. I decided to give it a shot with my personal blog.

I’ll walk you through migrating a WordPress site from WP Engine over to GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting platform. The entire process took about 5 minutes to setup, and GoDaddy says the migration itself could take between 30 minutes and 2 hours.

I’ll monitor the performance, as well as walk you through all the features, as soon as things are up & running. (more articles coming soon)

NOTE: GoDaddy cannot automatically migrate if your WordPress site…

• is in maintenance mode. Disable the maintenance mode plugin.
• uses a custom login page. Remove or disable the custom login functionality.
• is hosted by WordPress.com. Move to self-hosted WordPress.

Purchase GoDaddy WordPress Hosting Plan

GoDaddy offers 3 tiers:

• Starter – 1 website – 25k monthly visitors – 100GB storage
• Business – 5 websites – 250k monthly visitors – 500GB storage
• Pro – 25 websites – Millions of visitors – Unlimited storage

The prices are constantly changing, as GoDaddy offers many deals throughout the year. (prices last updated 11/4/2014)

GoDaddy WordPress Hosting Migration Steps

Once you’ve purchased your plan…

Step 1 – My Account

Navigate to “My Account,” and find the Managed WordPress option under the Products tab. Click Launch. This will take you to your Hosting Control Center, where you can view all your GoDaddy hosting accounts.

Step 2 – Set Up Hosting

Find your New Managed WordPress Site and click “Set Up.”

Step 3 – Choose Migration or New Site

For this article, I’ll be walking you through migrating your existing WordPress site. Keep an eye out for a future article on setting up a new site.

Click the migrate option.

NOTE: This will not automatically move your site. It will still reside at your current host. GoDaddy sets up a temporary domain, and you’ll enter in domain details after the files & database have been migrated over.

Step 4 – Enter WordPress Login Credentials

GoDaddy will ask you for two sets of login credentials:

• WordPress admin
• FTP

If you’ve been editing your WordPress site, hopefully you know your WP login credentials. If not, you can always use the “Forgot your password?” link on your site’s login screen to reset your password.

For the Site URL, enter your website like this: http://www.yourwebsite.com.

FTP login information might not be as familiar to you, but you can locate this information from your existing hosting provider. Login to your control panel and look for FTP or SFTP information. Check in with your host’s support team if you need help finding it.

Click Finish to move onto the final step.

Step 5 – All Finished

And it’s that simple. You’re done for now. You’ll see a confirmation message stating that you are finished. And when you navigate back to your GoDaddy Hosting control panel, you’ll see this message stating that migration is pending.

Once GoDaddy finishes moving all your files & database to its servers, you’ll need to update your domain & DNS settings.

Have questions about migrating your site to GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting service? Let us know in the comments & we’ll do our best to help you out.