I managed to switch to another hosting provider without going offline for a single minute. This is zero downtime but there may be minor glitches all over the site.
Let me show you why:
- I exported the whole old wordpress 2.2 database in XML format and then reimported it in wordpress 2.3. Had to delete the categories and fix the database with a plugin before doing so as the resulting import was incomplete. So any site linking to a dead category will receive a 404 error page. Sorry but had to clean this blog up.
- I changed the wordpress folder on the server from
/wordpress/to simply/wordpress/and set up a permanent redirect (301) for such folders via cPanel - I created hotlinking protection for images, css and javascript files via the htaccess code generator and put it inside my
.htaccessmanually. I let feedburner take my images but I’m really not that sure it will work… notify me if you don’t see images in feeds - I tested the feeds and upgraded to feedburner feedsmith 2.3
- Still have to fine tune the feedflare code since it’s not displaying correctly
- The robots meta plugin does not work at all… will have to find a way to fix it since it’s a really useful plugin. The re-activation method did not make it
So now I have this brand new blog, cleaned up and with bandwidth protections on. I think I’ll also benefits from canonical urls but I have to admit that I don’t know how to use them… do I have to modify my .htacess file manually or does wordpress do the magic?
Think I’ll fix things up in the next weeks.