Here is a simple 5 step guide on how to move your Joomla CMS website from one hosting company to another.

First

Backup everything. Simple enough right? Just remember a small website, meaning fewer than 10 pages of content will typically have more than 6000 files to be downloaded when dealing with Joomla. Use a FTP software that allows you to drag and drop folders because manually clicking on each of those file to download is going to take you some time.
So you got your entire file and folder structure all in the root folder of your downloaded Joomla website, here is the next part. Time to export the MySQL database that corresponds with the website you are planning on moving.

Second

Export MySQL file. This is Very easy and straight forward to do. Login into PHPMyadmin. PHPMyadmin can be found in your hosting control panel. Once logged into the PHPMyadmin click on the database for the specific website you are planning on moving and click the export button. Some PHPMyadmin panels make have a different setup but will follow the same ideas. Hosting will let you into the PHPMyadmin without having to enter a user name and password, but in my opinion any good hosting would always ask for a user name and password for PHPMyadmin access.

Third

Edit configuration.php file to suit. This can be 1 or 2 changes required or multiple necessary changes maybe needed depended on how much of a variation there is to each hosting company’s setup.
Here is typically what would need some altering on either the hosting cpanel or in the configurerition.php file.
Here is what to change in the configuration.php file.
These 3 variables will need to be changed for your website to function. For your situation you might need to make less/more changes.
var $host = ‘’;
var $user = ”;
var $db = ”;
These 2 paths will most likely need to be modified, your website will still work without making the changes to these 2 paths, but if you would like to upload any new extensions in the future you will have a problem.

var $log_path = ‘ ‘;
var $tmp_path = ‘ ‘;

Forth

Upload the directory you downloaded from the old hosting. Remember to make all necessary changes to the configuration.php file before uploading it. Once again I recommend a FTP software will full folder drag and drop, makes thing a lot quicker and easier.

Fifth

Import your old database. Just like it says, just like you exported the database now you going to import it to the new hosting. Your hosting PHPMyadmin will walk you through the process of importing your database.

That should be all, now you old site should be working just fine on your new hosting account.