I have been hosting my websites at Media Temple but started noticing that many people mention that SiteGround was a good website hosting company. I haven’t been dis-satisfied with Media Temple but noticed that SiteGround includes free SSL certificates and additionally caching features. So, I thought I would test them out.

Here are the steps to move from Media Temple to SiteGround. These steps assuming using my favorite plugins including ManageWP.

  • Prepare website on Media Temple
    • Delete plugins
      • Wordfence Security
      • WP Super Cache
  • Make backup to zip using ManageWP
    • Create on demand backup
    • Download backup as ZIP file
  • Remove website from ManageWP
  • Move DNS records
  • Create Addon Domain to SiteGround
  • Install WordPress on SiteGround
    • WordPress autoinstaller
      • Choose protocol – http://
      • Choose domain
      • In Directory – leave blank
      • Admin username
      • Admin password
      • Admin email
      • Uncheck – WordPress Starter
      • Advanced Options
        • Database name
      • Click Install
  • Login into WordPress admin
    • Install ManageWP plugin
  • ManageWP
    • Add website to ManageWP using connection key
    • Activate Backups – free
    • Copy ZIP file via FTP to /wp-content/
    • Restore ZIP backup
    • Delete ZIP file
  • Reinstall plugins
    • Wordfence Security
      • Click – Optimize the Wordfence firewall
      • Configure settings
      • Special settings
        • Create a php.ini file in root folder.  Add this command
          • auto_prepend_file = “/home/domainname/public_html/domainname/wordfence-waf.php”
      • Add to Wordfence Central
        • Apply template
  • SG Optimizer
    • Enable in cPanel -> SuperCacher
      • Level 1: Static Cache – turn on
      • Level 2: Dynamic Cache – turn on
      • Level 3: Memcached – turn on
    • SQ Optimizer plugin
      • Supercacher Settings
        • Dynamic Caching – turn on
        • Automatic Cache Purge – turn on
        • Memcached – turn on
      • Environment Optimization
        • GZIP Compression – turn on
        • Browser Caching – turn on
      • Frontend Optimization
        • Minify HTML output – turn on
        • Minify JavaScript Files – turn on
        • Minify CSS Files – turn on
        • Remove Query Strings from static resources – turn on
        • Disable emojis – turn on
      • Image Optimization
        • New Image Optimization – TURN OFF
        • DON’T optimize images
        • Lazy Load Images – turn on
        • Turn on all four
  • SSL
    • cPanel -> Let’s Encrypt
      • Select Domain
      • Type – not wildcard
      • Click Install
    • SG Optimizer – Environment Optimization
      • Enable HTTPS – turn on