Why people generally follow this long method to install WordPress is that they need a neat and clean Plugin Free and Bloatware free WordPress without any customizations. And we know you are one of them. Congratulations!. You have come to the right blog post. We have explained all the steps involved in installing WordPress Manually. You can follow together.
Before that, Download the latest version of WordPress from wordpress.org
Upload the ZIP file to public_html Folder
If you are new to WordPress, we suggest you read this small article about accessing your WordPress directory files.
Once you are inside the Home Directory, i.e, the ‘public_html’ folder, you need to upload the downloaded WordPress zip file to the home directory. You can either ‘drag and drop’ it into the ‘public_html’ folder, or you can use the ‘upload’ option in the ‘File Manager’ of your hosting. (Not all hostings support ‘Drag and Drop’).
If there are any other files inside the ‘public_html’ folder, just delete them. Hosting providers add their default.php or index.php which needs to be removed. The ZIP file you upload should be the only file inside the home directory.
If you don’t have ‘File Manger’ access to your hosting account, you can also complete these steps using FTP access.
In the case of the FTP method, since you use the free version of File Zilla, you need not upload the ZIP file since you will not be allowed to extract the file. Instead, follow the below step. Complete them offline and finally upload it to the home directory.
Extract the ZIP file and move its contents
Once the file is inside the ‘public_html’ folder, you need to extract it. Once extraction is complete, you can see a new folder with the same file name you extracted. Now you need to open the extracted folder. You will see one more folder inside with the name ‘WordPress’.
Now move the contents inside the ‘WordPress’ Folder back to the ‘public_html’ folder. So now, when you open the home directory, you will see a bunch of files.
You can safely delete both the ZIP file and Extracted Folder, which is empty already.
At this stage, if you open your website, WordPress prompts you to install it. DO NOT Proceed unless you create new database credentials.
Create New Database for your new Website
In this step, we need to create a Database and a Database User with all privileges. The procedure depends on the hosting you are using.
Go to the Database section of the Hosting Control Panel. Select ‘ Create New Database’. Some hostings like Hostinger allow you to create a Database and User together. In hostings like Siteground and CPanel ones, you need to manually create Database and Database User separately and then need to add the user to the database. Overall depends on what you use.
If you face any trouble while creating Databases, you can seek help from Hosting Provider.
While creating a Database, it is asked to create a password. Always create a strong password. You need not remeber it.
Now you must have these data in hand. Database Name, Database Username, and Database Passowrd. Have it copied in a text document on your PC. Later you can delete it.
Update the wp-config.php File
Now you need to open the wp-config-sample.php inside your File Manager. The browser will allow you to edit it. Now find the below lines
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define( 'DB_NAME', 'database_name_here' );
/** MySQL database username */
define( 'DB_USER', 'username_here' );
/** MySQL database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here' );/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define( 'DB_NAME', 'database_name_here' );
/** MySQL database username */
define( 'DB_USER', 'username_here' );
/** MySQL database password */
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here' );Here you need to replace it with the Database Credentials you created in the previous step. Once those 3 values are updated, save the file.
At this stage, you can also disable WordPress Autoupdates just by adding the below line just before the line which says, /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */ inside the same file.
define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );Once done, you need to rename the File, wp-config-sample.php. Just remove the word ‘sample’.That’s it. All the Manual Procedure has been completed and now is the time to install WordPress.
Installing WordPress
Just visit your Site. It will ask to install WordPress. Before you proceed, just make sure that your domain SSL is either ‘Available’ or ‘Not Available’. I mean, don’t switch to HTTPS versions from your hosting panel while WordPress is being installed. If you are using SSL for your site, also make sure that it is installed. The status should be ‘active’ and not ‘pending’. If it is showing pending, just wait for 5-10 minutes until the status turns ‘active’.
If the WordPress installation page is not loaded, please add ” /wp-admin/install.php” to the end of your domain in order to install WordPress.
Enter the required information. Basically, you will create a login username, password, and admin email. The moment you click Proceed, the process will be instant and it will ask you to ‘login’ to your site.
Important: If you are doing this on a domain that is frequently visited by people, anyone who visits your site can install WordPress which is not the right thing to do. You can utilize Cloudflare to completely disable your website for every other user except yourself.
Also, remember to tick Mark on the ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site‘.
Congratulations on your First Manual WordPress install. Once you know how to do it, you don’t need a guide the next time.