I host my blog on a free host right now but am thinking of moving it to keep from having problems as the owner has mentioned selling the blog host. How easy is it to move a WP blog on the technical side? Is it a save/download/upload type thing or something more involved?

You'd have to download then upload your MySQL database - should be straightforward enough, using the tools available through most control panels. You may have to manually alter some of the settings in your MySQL database, to match the name of your new database; and you may have to alter some of your paths if your username at your new host doesn't match the username at your free host.

I don't think this is a huge catastrophe. It isn't a click, click, click, done operation, but it isn't rocket surgery. You may need to consult the WP support forums a few times, and may need to ask your host for additional help - but this should be possible.

I recommend shutting down all commenting capability, then trying the migration while your old account is still up and active. Just ask your new host if they can temporarily let you use a subdomain while you complete the move, instead of transferring your domain over immediately.

Forgot to add: if WP has an import/export entries feature, things could be a little easier. You'll just follow WP's directions for exporting your entries from your existing location, then importing them to your new location. (I evaluated WP several years back, but ended up going with another package as WP just wasn't that intuitive - so I don't know what features WP has or doesn't have, in the way of import/export functionality.)

But I like rocket surgery

It definitely seems like all I've been doing lately. Why does it never seem like such a hassle for a client but the minute you're on your own site its like the apocolypse?

I'll definitely check the WP support and drop a line to my host. Hopefully I can get all the research done this weekend.

Make a backup! I had a friend do this from a free host, not sure the name of it anymore but somehow in the move he did something wrong and poof no more blog. It was only for personal use but he was still a little peeved over it.

If it's wordpress to wordpress then it's just a matter of exporting all the posts in XML format (I think it's in the manage menu) and then importing them in to the new wordpress. You even have the ability to select a box which automatically downloads the images of the old blog to the new blog.

The only problem you might see is if you migrate to the same domain name... the images might not copy in this case. If this happens then export to another name (maybe backup.mydomain.com) and then export again from that to mydomain.com.

The whole process is fairly painless.

i think best way is transfer it manually download database and restore it via phpmyadmin or ssh and compress files and extract it on new server...

The easiest way is to do an export from within WP at your current host and then once the new WP is setup at the new host you can then do an import from within WP. You will need to reconfigure everything but that might clear out bugs.

Check out this link for more help:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/152188

Make sure that the version of mysql server are same for easy transfer of the database. Of course any version is fine for the transfer, but if it is same, the transfer of db would be hassle free.

I found that the built in export/import features work well as they also transfer comments, users, images etc... and change all the paths. Using the WP built in method gets rid of the potential problems of MySQL incompatibilities between versions.

But if for some reason you do need to export/import in phpmyadmin then I have found that version numbers do "occasionally" matter but not too often.

When I moved my blog I corrupted it. The best way is to install Wordpress on the new server, export posts on old server and import them to the new wordpress installation.

That is what I ended up doing in the end.

Below is a link of ways to help you.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

I've been lucky so far. The only blog that I've had to move didn't have a huge amount of posts on it so I just saved each post to my hard drive and then re-posted them when I had the new blog set up. Set up a forward with a page letting my viewers know that I had moved and giving them the new url to bookmark was all I had to do. I gave them 14 days to change their bookmarks.

When mysql softwares are moved, often its forgotten to check the version of mysql on the final and the old servers, which cause lot many issues for such transfers. If the transfer is between compatible versions , say from mysql 4.0 to 4.1 or 4.0/4.1 to 5, it is usually a easy quick go.

Making a blog with Word press is very easy,i mean there is minimal coding in things of that sort required to make a WP blog,just get their Templates,add your stuuf and your done.

I have not heard of many people have issues moving a blog site over and I have not had any myself but sometimes free hosts are tricky. I remember one guy I spoke with told me whoever he hosted with back then ended up telling him that there was no way it could be done. Maybe as the host used some weird control panel or something?