How to Install Your Wordpress Blog at Hostgator
During the first days of PinoyDreamer, I encountered a problem regarding installing wordpress in my web host. I really had a hard time during those times. I asked help from some paid services, and guess what, I’m instantly neglected. I only asked the procedures, and not for them to setup my blog (though I have realized that it’s their business, and they will not give it away for free). Anyways, that really hurt my frustrated feelings, and one thing that I thought in getting back to them is by writing an article that will fully explain how the process of installation is done, for FREE. And here it is.
Steps to Install Wordpress in Hostgator WebHost
Installing wordpress in hostgator can be easy or complicated, depending on the installation process you choose, but no doubt, you’ll be using the easiest one. I’ll first discuss the instant installation – Using Fantastico De Luxe:
- The first thing you should do is to look into your email after purchasing the services of Hostgator. Get your control panel’s username and password then we’re ready to go.
- Login to your website’s control panel, it will probably be in this location, http://yoursite.com/cpanel. It may not work for the first day of your purchase, but it will eventually be ok after your DNS has been propagated to the world wide web, probably the longest time it will take to do so is two days (I bet it won’t take you that long).
- After logging in, select the icon of Fantastico De Luxe (the blue smiley icon). It is often the last icon in your control panel.
- In the Fantastico De Luxe window, look at the left sidebar where all third party scripts are located and select wordpress. Wordpress installation page will appear, just select “New Installation” and off you go. Fill out the forms. *If you want your blog to appear in the main directory of your wesite, e.g. http://yoursite.com and not http://yoursite.com/blog, leave install in directory blank.
- You’re done! Just don’t forget the username and password that you used in the installation process, you will need that to login in your blog’s administrative panel.
That’s the very easy part. Now I will show you another way to install wordpress in your directory. There is really no need to discuss this, but just in case Fantastico De Luxe is no longer available in your web hosts’ control panel, this may prove very useful.
- What you need to do first is to download the latest version of wordpress. To date, the latest version is wordpress 2.3.3. Download it here.
- In your webhosts control panel, select MySQL database ( the one with the blue dolphin logo). From there, create a database, then create a database user. After that, proceed to “Add Users to Your Databases” and find the privileges checkbox and put a check in the “ALL” selection (I believe it is located at the left side of that column), then click “Add user to database” to confirm.
- Back to your downloaded wordpress files. After you have unzipped the file, open the file wp-config-sample.php, open it in your text editor (notepad or worpad will do), fill in your database details (now use the database username and password that you have created earlier), and save it as wp-config.php. Don’t forget this last part.
- Now open your FTP client and open your domain’s FTP account (if you don’t have one, download it for free here). **Remember that you still have to create an FTP account in your webhost’s control panel. You can do that by accessing the FTP manager**
- Upload all the files from your wordpress folder (only the files inside it, not the single wordpress folder itself) to the public_html directory.
- Off you go. Just open your domain’s url, http://yoursite.com, then follow the necessary steps to finish the installation.
That’s it! Your ready to be the newest problogger in town! 
In the same directory, public_html, you can access your wordpress files, install new plugins and themes.. I hope this post prove to be useful. I did my best for it to be as sequential as possible. If you have any questions regarding this, don’t hesitate to contact me. Happy Blogging!!
If you find this article helpful, please don’t forget to comment on the form below. If it is not, please inform me which part is confusing by filling in the comment form below.
Nice! Thanks.
didn’t know it was that easy.. thanks!
By “Wordpress blog,” do you mean the open source software available through wordpress.org? (as opposed to the single-page blogs that Wordpress.com will host for free)
Hi Nikoy!
Thank you for your post. It has been a big help to me today. I owned a self hosted mom blog before but it was hacked. My hosting service before has a bad customer service. To cut my story short, I never recovered my well traffic self hosted mom blog and my momblog currently owned by the hacker.
Now, I have moved on from my bad experience. I have created my new selfhosted blog pinayphotographer.com and I choose hostgator. The problem is I do not know anything about installation. My hosting service before provided a 1-click installation feature for wordpress, which hostgator do not have. Lucky me to find your post today. You saved me from hiring tech geeks to set up wordpress in my hostgator cpanel. Thank you for saving me from frustation and money. One last thing, my url is not yet working. Should I wait for hostgator to fix the DNS server thing or Do I need to set that up too?
Thanks!
PiPay
Hi Pipay, thanks for the visit.. where did you acquired your new domain pinayphotographer.com? If it is from services other than Hostgator, you should point the DNS to the hosting service of Hostgator, this will take approximately 48 hours to propagate.. If you acquired it from hostgator, they’ll do it for you..
The second part of your installation process was hard to follow. Perhaps, your info was from a later version of wordpress. I have the 2.71 version. I already had a user database when I started your steps. What does that mean?
I’m particularly stuck at #2 where you start talking about “unzipping” files. Can you guide me from this point? Also, what do I do after all of your steps are completed. My blog still has its original domain name.
I only signed up to hostgator so that I can put adsense on my wordpress blog. I’ve very new at all of this, and if I don’t have a step by step process, I’ll get lost usually! I’ve spent countless hours trying to learn all of this. But heck, I’m not even sure when I’m done, and what differences to look for. Why are so many people saying “how easy and quick” all of this is. PLEASE HELP! THANKS MUCH!!!! Keri W.
Thanks for this straight forward and simple info on installing another wordpress blog on a hostgator plan… I had forgotten how i put my first on and ran into nothing but headaches trying to put another one on another domain… you rock!
Hi and thanks for being so helpful! I installed wordpress on hostgator and i’m building a new site in a subdirectory — i already have a site so I don’t want to move it out of the sub till it’s ready.
I isntalled and activated a new theme, made a bunch of changes and posts, and now they are all gone… ???
I installed using Fantastico, but when I click on the url it gives me it comes up as a page load error. Does anyone know what I might have done wrong?? Thanks!
Thank you! That was very helpful. I know the frustrations you felt. This made it much easier.
Thanks, you just ended hours of trying to figure this out!
Thanks so much!!! You saved me a serious headache and maybe a breakdown…
Thanks so much! I am starting a new blog and had no idea where to start!