Suggestions for moving or mirroring content from one domain to another on Dreamhost?

June 23, 2011 5:42 AM

Dreamhost help needed! Do I need to physically move files and databases from one subdomain to another at Dreamhost, and if so, how best to do it? All details inside.

Dear Dreamhost/Wordpress Mavens: I have (actually a client has) a Dreamhost Account and one domain registered and hosted with Dreamhost. I'll call that domain projectx.com. Wordpress has been installed, configured, designed for projectx.com on Dreamhost, and is working great.

On Godaddy we have a domain I'll call clientname.com. At the moment, clientname.com is just being forwarded to projectx.com.

I want to host clientname.com on this Dreamhost account (I know how to do that), but I want the content that is on projectx.com to be on clientname.com instead. (Or "also," but it seems that there is too much danger of search engine blacklisting with two domains featuring the same content.)

Is the only way to do this to physically move the files and the MySQL databases? Because I'm really, really worried about doing that. I'm not experienced in doing anything at all with MySQL, and it intimidates me!

(Another complication: projectx.com actually has two wordpress installations, one at projectx.com/home and one at projectx.com/blog.)

posted by taz to computers & internet (12 answers total)

So you'll have projectx.com do a redirect to clientname.com once your done?

>>Is the only way to do this to physically move the files and the MySQL databases?
I'm not sure that's the only way, but I'm pretty sure that's the BEST way.
You have phpMyAdmin on both? I know you do at DH, probably something like that at GD too. Assuming the DBs aren't large, just use that, do an export on one, then an import on the other. If you're not sure what DB name each WP install is using look at the wp-config.php file on each.

Just copy all the files to DH, then the DBs, then start the redirects. Copying the mysql stuff really isn't bad at all.
posted by Blake at 6:14 AM on June 23, 2011

Hi! Yes, I'd redirect projectx.com to clientname.com.

Copying the mysql stuff really isn't bad at all.

If you know of any nice how-to page, I'd appreciate that, too! What I've seen so far hasn't been very reassuring. :)
posted by taz at 6:24 AM on June 23, 2011

Does GD have phpMyAdmin or how do you get to your DBs there?
posted by Blake at 6:37 AM on June 23, 2011

Dreamhost does have phpMyAdmin, though I have no experience working with it.
posted by taz at 6:41 AM on June 23, 2011

Will the two domains eventually have different content? If not, you should be able to setup a domain on dreamhost for clientname.com and point it to the folder currently holding projectx.com. The only other change you'd need to make would be to set the site url for projectx.com to now be clientname.com. You can change the site url by editing wp_config.php.
posted by backwards guitar at 6:56 AM on June 23, 2011

At this time, it doesn't seem that there are plans for projectx.com to have different content.

So... if we did that, when you say point clientname.com to the projectx.com folder, do you mean via a redirect?
posted by taz at 7:08 AM on June 23, 2011

Hrmm, well Dreamhost will let you mirror a site, but I'm not sure how that will work with Wordpress (ie. will it say clientname.com in the address field or still say projectx.com)

Otherwise, you could fully host the domain, just choose the same folder as projectx.com for the WEB DIRECTORY setting when you setup the domain name
posted by backwards guitar at 7:53 AM on June 23, 2011

Dreamhost's PhpMyAdmin Wiki page has instructions for exporting and importing MySQL databases.

Step-by-step exporting instructions (not based on Dreamhost, so skip the first screenshot).
posted by kirkaracha at 7:58 AM on June 23, 2011

thanks, kirkaracha!

Backwards guitar, this: you could fully host the domain, just choose the same folder as projectx.com for the WEB DIRECTORY setting when you setup the domain name

sounds great, because easy :) – I only want to be sure that whatever I do will not be viewed as duplicating content by Google and other search engines, since they penalize sites they think are doing this to game the system. You don't happen to know if this would be considered that kind of "violation"?
posted by taz at 8:09 AM on June 23, 2011

I'm not terribly sure - I would think that by changing the site URL in Wordpress, projectx.com would now forward to clientname.com. Not sure what Google thinks about that, unfortunately.
posted by backwards guitar at 8:34 AM on June 23, 2011

Not entirely sure what you want to do here (will projectx.com point to anything at the end of the process?), but the term of art for what you want to do is migration.This google search gives a ton of links - find one that looks like what you want to do and let us know so we can guide you through the process.
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:44 PM on June 24, 2011

Thanks, you guys! I've been emailing with Dreamhost support, and they've been super helpful. It looks like I can do what backwards guitar is talking about without risk of duplicating content if I redirect projectx.com to clientname.com.
posted by taz at 3:42 AM on June 27, 2011