Changing web hosting companies - HOWTO

2. Backup your web site files, database(s)
The first step of actually moving your site to a new server will be to obtain a full backup of your existing site. This includes but is not limited to: backup of your site files, backup of your database, backup of some configuration files as .htaccess files, etc. There are several ways to do that.

Let's start with backing up all of your site files that are located on the old web hosting server. The easiest way to backup them would be to ask the web hosting company to create a backup file of all your site files and place it in your web space so you can download it using some FTP program. If you have SSH access to the web hosting server you can do such a backup on your own with tar or zip utilities that might be available for you. Also some web hosting Control Panel applications(for example CPanel) have a special function that generates full backup of your site and then gives you the option for downloading it to your computer. Well, check your options and go ahead and download the backup to your computer.

If you do not have an option to create a backup of your site, just use an FTP program to connect to your site and then download all your site files to your computer. If your site is relatively small, this will be the easiest way to go.

Once you have downloaded all your site files to your computer, you can proceed with backing up your database. With most of the web hosting companies you will have a utility such as PHPMyAdmin or some other program for managing your database in place. Such programs usually have an option to export your database to a file which you can import later on another server. If you do not have such software installed, you can always ask the current web hosting company support to create such a backup for you and place in your web site FTP space so you can download it to your computer.

If you have SSH access to the server you can create backup using command line utilities to perform this task. However in this case you will need to be familiar with working in such environment.

The other option, the same as the web site files you might have a function in your Control Panel that will generate full database backup available for download. You need to check if such a feature is available in your web hosting account Control Panel.

Assuming that you have downloaded your site files and database if any to your local computer we can consider this step done and can proceed to the next step of the process