Hi there,

I'm not sure which is the best forum for this, so here it is in Off Topic, I hope someone can shed some light.

I have read about how to shift a Wordpress website to a new server, however it's got me quite confused when I get to the bit about the database. You see, my mate has a server, and he has let me host a site on it free of charge. the current site is at www.site.com. It's old and crusty, and i've developed a new site using WP to replace it.

My mate set up www.site.com/wp as a space for me to tweak the site and get it looking just right. Now, I want to effectively overwrite the old site with the new, so that the address is still www.site.com, but it shows my shiny new WP site.

Because all the links in WP are absolute by default, of course it's not as simple as simply switching it over. However, I am aware that most people who use WP have gone through the set up process "by the book" and hence they are probably better able to understand how the back end works. While it was an advantage to use my mate's server for free, I have had nothing to do with the initial setup, so I'm still kind of in the dark about how WP actually works. My mate had one of his web people set it up, he himself knows nothing of WP and hasn't been able to help me. Rather than bug his staff with my questions, I want to see if I can find out what to do myself.

When my mate makes the switchover to the new site, all the links are broken. But when I try to change them in the Dashboard I can't really tell if they've worked because when I go to view the site in a browser it is of course still the www.site.com/wp one. Just now we tried switching it over so that I could log in and try to change the links manually while the site was live, but I can't even access the dashboard in that state. I get a "page under construction" page.

So, can anyone tell me a website where WP is explained in totally plain Engligh, for newbies? Do I need to change the permalinks and then get him to switch it so that I can see if it's worked? Or perhaps from my description you might have some otehr advice? Anything would help me at this point. 

Thanks in advance, you guys are awesome


[Mod (n8): Moved forums]