I'm interested in migrating an existing site hosted by Network Solutions to a site wrapped in Wordpress. Network Solutions seems to consider Wordpress to still be just a "blog tool" although it's not clear why.

It's a very simple, static site but in desperate need of a modern refresh. My plan was to plug content into Wordpress templates in lieu of having to actually design a site.

1) Can this be done with minimal interruption to the live site? I plan to migrate pages slowly, or else develop the WP version behind a curtain and then replace the original site all at once. Any advice is welcome.

2) When I log in via FTP, I see these:
"backup" (which is curiously empty even though the Backup Manager on the Network Solutions site sez backups are available for my site?)
"cgi-bin"
"htdocs"
a shortcut to "public_html"

3) Apparently there are three domains associated with the Network Solutions account. One looks related to the account info (something no one would ever type into a web browser but it works) the other two are like the familiar domain, with and without ".com" I took a look at the Wordpress installer here and it would want me to choose among the three but doesn't explain why.

I think I figured out at least this part. I can install WP into a new directory and put content there. When I'm ready for it to "go live" I can later point the domain to that directory instead of htdocs, yes?

Yes. You would install it to a sub folder, using the vanity URL and folder, http://xxxxxx.netsolhost.com/blog
Then, when ready, you can reconfigure Wordpress to use your domain instead of the vanity/folder and you would then repoint the domain to the blog folder in your Hosting Manager within Account Manager.


The /backup folder should have a file in it if you have any backups created. If the backups were enabled recently, please allow 24 hours for the file to be generated.
I checked your hosting package and I see a tar.gz backup file in your FTP as appropriate.


The domains that show available for the WordPress install will be your vanity (xxxxxx.netsolhost.com) and all domains and domain pointers associated to the hosting package (in your case, domain and www.domain). These can be seen in your Hosting Manager within Account Manager.
As stated before, I would choose the vanity/blog folder and later, you can change this setting manually within Wordpress administration, and change where you domain points within your Hosting Management screen.