How to Install WordPress Manually on MyHosting

While most web hosting companies provide you with a way to install popular softwares such as WordPress automatically, there are times when you need to install it manually.

In my case, one of the reasons I prefer to install WordPress manually is to be able to update it quickly when a new version comes out.

This is not possible (or ‘not recommended’ should I say) when you’ve installed WordPress using a script installer such as Fantastico Deluxe. In this case, you’d have to wait until the latest version of WordPress is made available through your hosting company’s script installer. And that can take too much time especially when security fixes are released.

How to Install WordPress from Scratch

Don’t worry: installing WordPress isn’t that difficult. Follow these simple steps to proceed and you should be done within 10 minutes.

For this tutorial, I will be using my MyHosting account. It is truly a great Canadian web host for WordPress blogs.

1. Head over to WordPress.org and download the latest copy of WordPress in .zip format. Save the file to a folder on your hard drive which you’ll remember.

   
   

2. Use a file compression tool like Winzip or jZip to extract the content from the WordPress archive. Again, extract the content to a folder you’ll remember of!
3. Now using a FTP Client such as Filezilla, upload the files and folders extracted previously to your hosting account. You can upload these files to a subfolder of your main account (ie.: http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog) or simply at the root of the public directory so that visitors will access your blog by default when typing your domain name. With MyHosting, the public root directory is “/webspace/httpdocs”.
   
4. You now need to make the blog’s root folder writable temporarily so that the installation wizard can write its configuration file. If you’re using Filezilla, do this by right-clicking the remote folder containing your WordPress installation and select File permissions…
   
5. Give full permissions to the directory and click OK.
   
6. Now you need to create a MySQL database. Head over to your MyHosting control panel located at https://manage.myhosting.com and log in.
   
7. Click on Hosting from the main menu and then on Databases.
   
8. Click Add New Database from the next page and then select MySQL 5 Databases from the drop down menu. Click Next.
9. Enter a name a for your database as well as a user name and password. Note down this information (and don’t forget the hostname!). Hit Next.
10. Click on Finish to complete the creation of the database.
    
11. Don’t give up, you’re almost done! Point your browser to your blog (ie. http://www.yourwebsite.com or http://www.yourwebsite.com/yourblog) to launch the WordPress installation wizard.
12. Click Create a Configuration File and then on Let’s go! to get started.
13. Enter the database information you noted down earlier and click on Submit.
14. Next you’ll be prompted to enter some configuration information for your new blog. I strongly recommend you use a user name other than “admin” as well as a strong password. You might want to uncheck “Allow my site to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati” until all your content is up. You can reactivate this later on.
    
15. Click on Install WordPress to proceed with the installation.
16. If everything went well, the installation wizard should tell you that the installation has completed successfully.
17. Don’t forget to change the permissions on the blog’s root folder back to its initial values (750) to avoid security issues.
    

Well that’s all! You can now log in WordPress and start writing your first post.

Stay tuned as I’ll post more tutorials to help you use WordPress more efficiently.

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Links

• WordPress.org Official Website
• MyHosting Official Website
• MyHosting Reviews
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External Links

• Tips to Choose the Right Blog PlatformTips to Choose the Right Blog Platform