[ad#test4]In the past year I have changed the web hosting service of this blog thrice, but I am confident these new guys are going to be its permanent home from hereon because not only is the price spot on (2.99/month) they offer excellent service, a ton of features and also $125 worth of vouchers for search advertising (i.e., vouchers for Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter).

But the free search advertising to the tune of $125 was not the reason I made the switch, the real reason why I switched was because I was tired of memorizing passwords and usernames for three different host and that’s not even including the added different passwords and usernames for their respective databases!

Anyway for about a day my blog was completely lost to Google through my own fault. When I first attempted to restore the blog’s backup I kept on getting an error message. The solution was really quite simple though, and if I had listened to the nagging voice in my head from the get-go Internet Business Mart would have been down for minutes not a day and a half.

Anyway the problem was that when installing the database I had opted for MySQL 4.0 not 5.0. What I have since learned is that MySQL 4.0 cannot read some of the data from MySQL 5.0 and the fact that my database backup was in MySQL 5.0 format ensured that I kept getting g the error message. So what to do?

Well the logical step was to delete the database and set up a new one in MySQL 5.0 format; which is actually very easy once you get the hang of it. Anyway so I did that, then duly downloaded the latest version of WordPress, adjusted the wp-config.php file with the pertinent data then uploaded it and the other WordPress files using filezilla to my new hosting service.

Importing A Backup of Your Blog Excludes Its Plugins Amongst Other Things!

And yes just like that WordPress was reinstalled in its very basic form. Now all I had to do was import my latest backup from my computer and reinsert the tables and posts into WordPress. (By the way I back up on a daily basis via a plugin that automatically sends a backup to the email of my choice. I do this because in the past year I learned the hard way how backing up is not a choice but a must!).

The plugin that makes backing up a cinch is called wp-db-backup and the plugin that makes importing your backup as easy as 1, 2, 3 is called wp-phpmyadmin. Actually the hosting service also has a readily accessible phpmyadmin which I am assuming does the same thing but I so happened to use the plugin version.

And that was that! My blog is pretty much as it used to be save for the fact it is now breathing and living on a new web hosting service. Sure a few things were not incorporated in the relocation of the blog but that is because I have to re-customize the theme which is in its basic format. But one thing I was particularly happy about was the fact that once I reinstalled various plugins such as adsense-manager my Google Adsense ads were instantly viewable again.

Oh another nifty thing about the updated versions of the backup plugin and phpmyadmin plugin is that now if you have images incorporated within your blog it will back those up too. The reason why the images are missing from my blog is because when I first relocated it from the 1st hosting service some months ago the backup plugin was in the neophyte stage and couldn’t handle images (or maybe I just didn’t set it up properly).

White Tiger

Article on relocating blog is written by Ba Kiwanuka