How To Migrate Your WordPress Site With ShieldBACKUPS

While ShieldBACKUPS isn’t a dedicated migration tool, but it can be used effectively to migrate your WordPress site by providing clean, complete backups you can manually restore on your new host.

These are the steps to migrate your WordPress site using ShieldBACKUPS:

Step 1: Ensure Backups Are Active

Before you begin migration process, make sure ShieldBACKUPS is activated and meet requirements on your current site. To do that, please read this guide here.

Also, check what's excluded from backup.

Step 2: Create and Download a Full Backup Manually

Once you've completed step #1, from within your ShieldPRO Sites Manager page,

  1. locate the site you want to migrate and view available backups
  2. click to request a ZIP download of the latest backup

You will receive an email when your ZIP file is ready.

Step 3: Upload and Extract Backup on New Host

To move your site, firstly ensure that the server meets WordPress requirements (PHP version, MySQL, etc.) and then

  1. upload the downloaded ZIP file to your new hosting account
  2. extract the ZIP file using your hosting control panel (e.g., cPanel File Manager) or SSH (unzip command)
  3. after extraction, locate the worpdrive directory — it contains your site files and a .sql database export

Step 4: Import the Database

To restore your database:

  1. Use a tool like phpMyAdmin or WP-CLI on your new host.
  2. Import the .sql file located in the worpdrive directory.

Make sure the new host’s database settings match what’s in your wp-config.php.

Step 5: Update Site Configuration (if needed)

If your domain or URL has changed:

  1. Open wp-config.php and update any WP_HOME or WP_SITEURL values.
  2. Log in to the WordPress admin panel.
  3. Go to Settings > General and verify your site URL settings.
  4. Navigate to Settings > Permalinks, and click Save Changes to refresh permalinks.
  5. Perform a search-and-replace on the database if your domain changed (e.g., using WP-CLI or a plugin).

Step 6: Test the Migrated Site

After migration, test your new site:

  1. Load pages, posts, and admin dashboard
  2. Check media, plugins, and themes
  3. Verify that links work and no resources are missing

Important Notes

  • ShieldBACKUPS is not a dedicated migration plugin. All migration steps must be completed manually.
  • If your backup exceeds the average site size of 10GB, backups may be paused per Shield Security’s Fair Usage Policy. Please contact us directly here if you manage exceptionally large sites.

Need Help?

If you need any help or support with backups, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.