Help with transferring a site? Options

[neoking]

Hi guys, so I'm a teen that makes websites every now and then for my uncle's consulting business in my spare time (outside of school). Now usually I work with wordpress and it's very easy to make the website for me (I'm pretty experienced with wordpress now).

This task he presented me with is a little unfamiliar. There is a taxi business he was working with and they need their site changed because they're transitioning into a limo company. Right now their site is (starcabcompany.com). What they specifically said is that they want the exact format of the site to be the same for the new one, but they want the logos to be changed (I have the new logo) and they want the fare info to change (I also have that).

Basically I have all the information for the new site, but I'm not sure how to move this whole site to their new domain. You see, I've never worked with bare html before (except the editor in wordpress).

I know CTRL + U brings up the source code, but I just don't know how to move it to the new domain and all the other source codes for the different pages of the site. And once I do, how do I modify it to fit this new site? For example, while skimming through the code for this current site, I see this:

rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Star Cab Dallas Taxi » Feed" href="http://starcabcompany.com/feed/" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Star Cab Dallas Taxi » Comments Feed" href="http://starcabcompany.com/comments/feed/" />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='ajax-contact-css-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/ajax-contact/css/ajax-contact.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='textcss-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/you-dispatch/css/text.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='timepicker-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/you-dispatch/css/jquery.ui.timepicker.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='customcss-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/you-dispatch/css/custom.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='autocompletecss-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/you-dispatch/css/autocomplete.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />
<link rel='stylesheet' id='960css-css' href='http://starcabcompany.com/wp-content/plugins/you-dispatch/css/960.css?ver=3.8' type='text/css' media='all' />

I see all these links pointing to that one domain (starcabcompany.com), so I can't just leave them there for the new site, right? Cause if they try to click links it'll transfer them back to the old site... So do I change all the domains in this code (starcabcompany.com/whatever) to the new domain (newdomain.com/whatever) ?

I'm seriously lost right now, and I will appreciate any help I get. Thanks!

[jimlongo]

1. Unless you're customizing functions or plugins, most wordpress content is changed in the admin pane, changing the html you see in the source directly is not really possible. Most style changes are accomplished by editing the css files. But i think you know that . . .

2. Moving a wordpress site is complicated by the fact that the database contains thousands of references to the old domain. All those links you're referring to are built from wordpress functions like stylesheet_dir(), stylesheet_uri(), template_dir(), etc., and the base domain name comes from the database. In addition image links, and many other paths are contained in the database. Even a small site will have hundreds, if not thousands of references to the domain in the database.

There's 2 ways to move a wordpress site.

The first and by far the easiest is to purchase the plugin BackupBuddy. It allows you to make a complete backup (files and database) and migrate them to a new server. Part of the process changes all the database references.

The second way to do it is to transfer the files to the new server, transfer the database, change the config.php file to point to the new database then run this script which will do a search and replace on the database to change all the old domain entries to the new one. Further information on that process can be found here.

This post has been edited by jimlongo: Dec 31 2013, 01:26 AM

[pandy]

But this site doesn't use WP from the look of it.

neoking, is this all hardcoded HTML as I think it is? No CMS or other scripting, no database? In that case you just need to download all the files (make sure to keep the file structure intact). You do this with an FTP program, not by View Source, so you need the login information for FTP. Then you edit the files where needed and upload the whole lot to the new accounts.

Assuming you are not experienced with FTP, an FTP program looks much like Windows Explorer, but on one side you have your local files and on the other side the files on the server, once connected, that it. Usually you can grab the main folder, the one that contains all web content and download that and all files and subdirectories it contains will be downloaded in one fell swoop.

If you need an FTP program, FileZilla is popular and free. It's also good and easy to use, so I suggest you grab that one.
https://filezilla-project.org/

[Frederiek]

The taxi site *does* use WP. That's where the posted code snippet comes from and as seen in the source on that site.
FTP will be needed, if they don't want to use WP anymore for their limo site.

Personally, I'm not familiar with WP, like Jim is, but a Google search for "change domain of wordpress site" might help.

[pandy]

I can't get anything right these days.

OK, I see the WP links in the code snippet now that you've pointed it out, but I'm still confused. The pages don't look like WP.

[neoking]

I'm confused too! So I contacted my uncle, and what happened was this taxi company hired a guy to make this site, and after he made it and got paid $2000, he left them without giving any login details or admin rights. This was many years ago, but they didn't care since they didn't need admin rights at that time. I'm not sure if it's wordpress or hardcoded HTMl, but it sure doesn't look like wordpress. Weird thing is is that I see "wp" a in the code, but when I go to (starcabcompany.com/admin), it doesn't take me to a WP login but like a taxi login.

So now I know that I can't get admin rights, can I really do anything? pandy, you said I won't be able to do this by viewsource and that I need the login information. Is this true?

[neoking]

Ok, I'm pretty damn sure it's wordpress now. When you go to (starcabcompany.com/readme.html), it takes you to a WP information sheet. Can someone visit it real quick and tell me if I can access all files on this website to transfer it to the new domain? That would be very much appreciated.

[pandy]

But your uncle's company must have been paying the hosting bill all these years. Tell them to contact the host and explain the problem. I'm sure they'll give them the FTP login.

I'm still not convinced that site is WP. For instance, the pages have an .html extension. Can WP be made to use that? If it can, it seems pretty advanced for someone who doesn't care as it sounds like that the developer didn't. Could there at one point have been a blog in addition to these static pages? Or maybe he just copied some stuff over from a WP site.

[pandy]

Forgot. Yes, you can copy the static HTML by View Source, but it's a hassle. And if the pages after all isn't static you can't get to the database and stuff from the web. You could still create a static copy of what's there now this way.

[jimlongo]

I do a lot of custom Wordpress work, there's no question . . . site is soooo Wordpress.

It's a custom theme (and pretty ugly one) but it is no doubt wordpress, there are so many giveaways in the code . . . nobody could hand code a site like that.

BTW ugly as it may be, it's a pretty nice app for getting fares.

NOTE: if you go to http://starcabcompany.com/wp-login.php it takes you to http://starcabcompany.etaxistand.com/wp-login.php == looks to me like a Wordpress Multisite install. You should talk to the extaxistand people about this to get more info. For instance http://alamocabdfw.com is another one of the extaxistand network cab companies, notice any similarities?

This post has been edited by jimlongo: Dec 31 2013, 03:08 PM

[neoking]

I do a lot of custom Wordpress work, there's no question . . . site is soooo Wordpress.

It's a custom theme (and pretty ugly one) but it is no doubt wordpress, there are so many giveaways in the code . . . nobody could hand code a site like that.

BTW ugly as it may be, it's a pretty nice app for getting fares.

NOTE: if you go to http://starcabcompany.com/wp-login.php it takes you to http://starcabcompany.etaxistand.com/wp-login.php == looks to me like a Wordpress Multisite install. You should talk to the extaxistand people about this to get more info. For instance http://alamocabdfw.com is another one of the extaxistand network cab companies, notice any similarities?

Wow, the look exactly the same!!! Ok, I'll contact my uncle and ask him about the hosting details and hopefully I can get inside the admin login.