Hi all, I’m a software dev who’s currently transferring a [Wordpress.com]) site to a self-hosted [Wordpress.org]) installation for a family member. They would like to have a ‘carbon copy’ if that makes sense: just completely the same site, but self-hosted instead of on a [Wordpress.com]) plan.
I’ve googled the issue, but all the tutorials seem to rehash the same process which only covers the content…
They’re currently on a Premium plan.
I’ve set up the new WordPress installation and I’m now kind of stuck on the export-import process.
In the .com, I’ve exported the content using Tools > Export, and on the .org side I’ve imported it using Tools > Import.
It did an ok job, but it’s not exactly what I’m looking for:
* the content (pages, posts) were transferred ok
* the theme was not transferred
* all the media files (images) are just linked to the .com site; I do have a separate export .rar file with (hopefully all) the media files, but we’d probably need to change all the links in the pages/posts?
* all the perma-links have been rewritten (they’re now ?p=… instead of the custom ones for pages and date-based urls for posts)
What we were actually looking for, was a transfer like taking a complete backup and restoring the backup… so just a copy of the database and wp-content (and maybe even built-in files as well).
Is there a way to achieve this?
Should I advise to upgrade to the Business plan, so we can install a backup plugin (like Updraft) (will that even work on .com ?)? Or do it manually with ssh to dump the database, and then transfer them using sftp (which should be included in the Business plan)? And after these, just cancel the subscription?
Or should I just tell them they’re going to have to redo the whole theme customization (and manually change the perma-link on all the posts and pages and all the links to the media files)?
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