Hi there @osoisi,
The process that you need to follow is:
- You would need to first set up a Wordpress Droplet, to do that you can either follow the steps on how to do that manually here:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-with-lamp-on-ubuntu-18-04
Or you could use the 1-Click installation here:
https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/wordpress
After that, you need to backup your Wordpress files and Database from your GoDaddy account
Then using SFTP or SSH upload your Wordpress files and database to your DigitalOcean Droplet.
If you are using the 1-Click installation, you can delete the files from the /var/www/html
folder and upload your files from GoDaddy to that folder.
Then you would have to create a new database and a username and import your Wordpress database that you’ve backed up from your GoDaddy account
After that make sure to update your wp-config file with the new database details
Then in order to avoid any downtime, you can test your site on your Droplet. To do that you can edit the hosts file on your PC to bypass the DNS lookup and access the site on our servers through your main domain.
This only affects your computer and your visitors will see the site as normal.
The location of the file is as follows:
C:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts
/etc/hosts
/etc/hosts
Just open it up in your favorite text editor (e.g. Notepad) and add that line on the bottom:
- server_ip_address yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com
Once you have made the change, save the file and browse to your website as normal. Make sure to clear the cache of your browser.
You will see it served from your DigitalOcean Droplet and will be able to test the full functionality of your CMS before actually pointing your domain name to your DigitalOcean Droplet.
To view the site on your existing host, just remove the line from your hosts file.
- Finally once you are sure that your website is working as it should, then you will need to point your domain name to your Droplet, you can do that by either changing your A record to point to your Droplet’s IP address or changing your nameservers to the DigitalOCean nameservers:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-point-to-digitalocean-nameservers-from-common-domain-registrars
So to summarize:
- Create a WordPress Droplet
- Backup your website
- Upload your website to your Droplet
- Import your database and update your wp-config file
- Test your website with your hosts file
- Once you are sure that the website is working point your domain to your Droplet
Let me know if you have any questions.
Hope that this helps!
Regards,
Bobby

by Josh Barnett
by Kathleen Juell
DNS is the naming system that is used to bind a domain name to a web server. In this guide, we will change the nameservers for a domain that we have registered and point it to a DigitalOcean Droplet.