While writing a previous article on how to backup and restore your WordPress Database, we recommended that you use phpMyAdmin to do this. This is our preferred way, as not only is phpMyAdmin an industry standard for managing databases, but it's also included in your cPanel and we're very familiar with using it.

Not all hosts provide phpMyAdmin to their users, so we're providing this article to serve as an alternative for transferring your WordPress database from your previous hosting company to Web Hosting Hub.

There are several different ways to transfer an entire WordPress site from one host to another. If this is the first article you're reading on transferring WordPress between servers, please be sure to start your reading here instead:
How to Migrate your WordPress Site to Web Hosting Hub

The majority of this article will pertain to backing up and then importing your database using the WP-DBManager WordPress plugin. We will also include all of the steps for transferring a WordPress site if you are using WP-DBManager for the database backup.

Transferring WordPress between hosts using WP-DBManager

As stated above, this is an all in one article for migrating your WordPress site from one host to Web Hosting Hub using WP-DBManager (compared to using phpMyAdmin or another database utility). These are the steps you'll need to follow:

1. Install WordPress to your Temporary URL
2. Follow all of the steps on this page, starting with "Installing WP-DBManager"
3. Test your WordPress site using a hosts file modification

Installing WP-DBManager

There are many WordPress plugins that allow you to import / export an entire database, but in the few that we tested, we found WP-DBManager to work best.

You'll need to install the WP-DBManager WordPress plugin on both your previous server and your Web Hosting Hub server. To do so:

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard
2. Navigate to "Plugins" -> "Add New"
3. Search for "wp-dbmanager"
4. Click "Install Now" and continue to activate the plugin

Generate and Download a backup of your Database

Follow these directions to create the database backup on your previous host that you will later import on your Web Hosting Hub server.

1. Log into the WordPress dashboard on your previous host
2. Now that you've installed WP-DBManager, you should see a "Database" option in the left menu. Click "Database" -> "Backup DB"
3. Ensure under "Checking Backup Status" that you see "Excellent. You Are Good To Go"
4. Click the "Backup" near the bottom of the page.
5. If the backup was successful, you should see a success message similar to: "Database Backed Up Successfully On 'June 14, 2011 @ 3:18pm'.

Now we need to download the database backup that we just restored.

1. Still in your WordPress dashboard, click "Database" -> "Manage Backup DB" in the left menu
2. Select the database file you just created in the table, and click "Download"

Upload and Import the database backup you just generated

Now that you have a backup of your database, we'll need to then upload it to your Web Hosting Hub server and then Import it. Let's first cover uploading the file.

The database backup that you generated will be named similar to 1308064682_-_user_db.sql. This file needs to be uploaded to your wp-content/backup-db directory. If you're not familiar with FTP, you can use the file manager in your cPanel to upload the file.

Once you've uploaded the file, we need to now import it.

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard for the WordPress installation on your Web Hosting Hub account
2. In the left menu, click "Database" -> "Manage Backup DB".
3. If you uploaded the database backup file successfully, you should see it in the list. Select the database from the list and click "Restore". If the database was restored successfully, you should see a message similar to, "Database on 'June 14, 2011 @ 3:18 pm' Restored Successfully.