Hi - VERY new to this webmastering thing. I *do* have a couple of sites done through SBI which is a "plug and play" allinone host deal. Am branching out into trying to be a "REAL webmaster" and am wondering where I could find a step-by-step tutorial on how to transfer an existing purchased site to my host. Just signed up for DreamHost (yep - cheap starter deal) to get my feet wet and have a new site to start (have a Pligg based site in mind). Also I am looking at buying a few existing sites and tranferring them to my new DreamHost account. In particular I have a php based site I'm considering buying.

What exactly - step-by-step - is the process one uses to buy and transfer an existing site from the seller's host to your host?

BTW - I did dabble a bit with a throwaway free hosting deal and built a "test" Joomla site just to get familiar with CP, ftp and mysyqyl DB stuff - but still have a bit to learn. And I did use the search function here and didn't find an answer - although a Google search produced one place with vague general methods that didn't seem to apply to my scenario. Joined this forum to try to find answers...

Thanks in advance for any help/tips/info you can offer.

Hi all,
I have the same issue. I want to transfer my website which is Simple machine community forum and currently hosted on a shared hosting service.I just bought a new reseller plan and want to transfer my community site to new host.

Kindly guide me what should I do. How can I transfer my whole site to my new reseller account on new host.

Should I transfer my public_http folder or other folders as well ?

Other folders include

.autorespond
.cpaddons
.cpanel-datastore
.fantastico-datastore
.httpasswds
.sqmaildata
.trash
etc
mail
public_ftp
quote
tmp
www (shortcut)
and few other files (not folders)



Backing up mysql database and then restoring it to the new site using Myphpadmin right ?

Looking for any help that can help : )

Best regards.
Jim

If you guys are using CPanel, then you have several options:

1.) Convince your new host to help you transfer your sites to their server. Nowadays, hosting companies offer this service for FREE just to get new clients. Your host being the administrator of the webhosting server can just plug in your hosting username and password on their "Site Transfer" console in WHM and it will be very quick and easy move for you. It will be a complete transfer so you just need to point your domain afterwards to the new nameservers.

2.) Do it Your Self Process. Login to your CPanel and download your website backup files (look for home directory backup) as well as all your MySQL backup files. You might want to download also the "Filters and Aliases" for complete transfer. You can find these downloadable files the Backup page of your Cpanel Console. Then you need to restore these backup files on your new host once the account is created on the new server. To minimize this post, you can find a tutorial on this subject that I created:

To backup:
http://www.cpsitesaver.com/cpanel_backup_tutorial.htm

To restore
http://www.cpsitesaver.com/cpanel_backup_restore.htm

There are other tutorials there that can help you.

3.) Hire Someone to do this for you. If you have some funds to spare, you can hire someone from freelancer sites like www.scriptlance.com (http://www.scriptlance.com) to do the transfer for you. Normally, the hired programmer will just do No 2 procedure above. I suggest you try first for experience before asking someone and shell out money. Its relatively easy once you get the hang of it.

So there you are. You have several options on how to transfer your sites.

Hope this helps.

Good luck! ;)