Transfer Existing Blogs
These are instructions for automatic blog transfer which works in the large majority of cases. If you have any issues, don't hesitate to contact us and we'll help you out.
We don’t recommend transferring eCommerce or any other complex WordPress installation. We do not support the hosting of porn, pharma or gambling sites.
Please keep in mind the transfer limits:
- Do not use any third-party clone plugins since they might overwrite our system settings and break your blog.
- Before doing the transfer, update WordPress to the latest version, update all plugins and themes, disable all security plugins, remove all inactive themes and plugins on your existing blogs, and delete all unapproved comments (spam).
- The system will clone theme, plugins, posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus, custom posts, up to 1000 media files, then overwrite settings and add users (without passwords).
- Because passwords are encrypted, you'll need to reset passwords for existing users when the deployment is finished.
- Any files that are above 10 MB or are other than .jpg, .png, or .gif will not be imported.
How To Easily Transfer Your Existing Blog
1. Inside your EBN app account, click on the transfer button which will redirect you to the Blog Transfer form.
2. Enter the required information or use the Upload CSV function for bulk transfer.
- Blog Domain on EBN - New blog domain on EBN.
- Blog URL - Your blog's current address.
- Select Blog Network - Blog network where your blog will be added.
- Blog Username - WordPress username of the blog you want to transfer.
- Blog Password - WordPress password of the blog you want to transfer.
3. Click Submit. This will start the transfer process - from adding your blog to the actual transfer. It will take 35-45 minutes for the entire process to finish.
4. You can monitor the progress on the
Blog Transfer List tab.
Review the blog before changing DNS addresses by changing your hosts settings (see the bottom of this page).
5. Once confirmed that everything is there, change the DNS addresses.
What Happens if Transfer Failed
There are many reasons why a transfer fails. See below for reference and corresponding action.
- Error: This plugin requires ZipArchive support to enable exporting.
- Action: Contact your hosting provider about upgrading your server software.
- Error: Could not log in to the old blog.
- Action: Could be an issue with a custom WP login page or a WordPress error when logging into the WordPress dashboard.
- Error: Could not reach the old blog. Received 'ConnectionError' error.
- Action: Disable all security plugins - i.e. iThemes Security, All In One WP Security, Wordfence Security, Sucuri Security, Acunetix WP Security.
- Error: Could not set theme (Tiny Forge) on the new blog.
- Action: Theme does not exist in WordPress.org repository. Usually an outdated theme. You'll need to install a theme manually.
- Error: Invalid username and/or password.
- Action: Click the edit icon on the right side of the transfer row and enter the correct login credentials.
If the blog is not online but you have the files and database
If your blog is not online and/or you’d like to restore directly from files and database, you will first need to restore the blog somewhere else – either on your local server or on some other host. Then you can use the above process to transfer the blog to EBN.
Checking the Transfer Before Changing Nameservers
Before changing nameservers, we highly recommend you log in to your new blog by changing your hosts' file to the new server’s IP. This way you can check if anything’s missing and how many things you will need to manually import.
Learn how to change etc/hosts file on any operating system in
this tutorial.