As companies begin to offer new products or services, or enter new markets, changing business strategy may be unavoidable. This includes aligning your domain name with your brand equity.
In addition to providing an understandable address, a also represents your brand. With this in mind, the domain should reflect the goals and missions of your brand.
Fortunately, changing a domain name is a simple process. In this article we will show you how to do it for a WordPress site.
Why change your domain name?
Typically, most businesses and companies stick with their initial domain name and build their marketing strategies around it. However, sometimes it is necessary to change a domain name.
These are the most common reasons:
- rebranding: Whether it’s new management or a new target audience, sometimes companies need to rebrand. The website address is one of the most important business identities, so it must be aligned with your new brand.
- Change of domain extension: If you’re using an industry-specific subdomain, like , or a country code extension like .uk or a .co.uk domain and you want to use a more generic one, switching to a new one, like the .comor the TLD , can be a great idea.
- Create a user-friendly URL: The simpler a domain name is, the easier it is to remember. Perhaps your old domain has complicated characters. In that case, change it to a more user-friendly address. An acceptable rule of thumb is to keep it around 12 characters.
- Merge of several domains: Your old domain name may have already gained authority and you want to merge it with your new domain. Domain merging allows you to get benefits and from the old website. It also helps brand consistency and makes it easier to improve your SEO efforts.
Whatever the reason, changing a domain name has its pros and cons. For example, a domain change can decrease web traffic and lower page rankings.
This is because Google and other search engines will need time to crawl and index the content of your new web address. As long as you apply the , you should be able to gain positions on search engine results pages.
Professional advice
Don’t put off changing your domain name. The sooner you do it, the lower the risk of losing your SEO attributes.
How to change WordPress domain name?
Generally, the steps to change the WordPress domain are simple, but some tasks will require you to modify the code of your website. Modifying the code could put your site at risk if done wrong.
Make sure you follow these prerequisites before continuing with the remaining steps:
Make a backup of your current site
before making any major changes. Doing so will allow you to recover your site when an error occurs. Otherwise, you risk losing all your data and having to start from scratch.
A WordPress website consists of two main components: the website files and the databases. Therefore, before transferring your site content to the new domain, make a full backup of your entire site.
For users with or , we offer a system of one-click restore and backup to make a backup of your WordPress site, through the control panel of .
Alternatively, several WordPress plugins allow you to perform a backup in just a few clicks. Some of the more popular options are , and .
Access to a hosting control panel or FTP client
If you want to change your WordPress domain, you’ll need to access your hosting account’s control panel – this is where you’ll add your new domain address. users can access the hPanel control panel and go to the Domain for its management.
You can also use a to upload the backup of your site. To do this, you must . Once everything is set up, you will be able to upload and manage larger files remotely from a local computer.
a new domain name
Be sure to do your research well before , from finding a credible hosting registrar to deciding on a suitable extension for your site’s address.
Many people use it for the names of their websites. A good rule of thumb is to make a list of potential domain names and check their availability through a domain name provider.
Now, if you have all the prerequisites ready, it’s time to take action. The next section will guide you through the easy methods to change your WordPress site address.
1. Buy a new domain name
First of all, head over to ‘s domain checker and type in your preferred domain. You’ll find out if this option is available and get some suggestions on alternative domain names, as well as their costs.
domain name checker
Immediately check the availability of the domain name.
If the domain name you want and its alternatives are already taken, try contacting the domain owner and negotiate a fair price for that particular domain. Use the WHOIS tool to find out about the domain along with the owner’s information, their phone number and email address.
However, if your desired domain address is available, simply add the domain to the cart and proceed to checkout.
During the purchase process, you will also have to specify the domain registration period. There are several registration periods ranging from one to ten years. However, most domain registrars will require you to pay for at least one year.
At , we offer a registration period of up to three years. If you buy the annual shared hosting plans Premium either Business From , you’ll get free domain registration for the first year and free WHOIS privacy protection.
Proceed to click the button Send secure payment to finalize your order.
2. Add the new domain name and upload the backup
The next step is to add the new domain name to your current hosting plan. Next, we will review the steps to do it both in hPanel like in cPanel.
Using hPanel
- Under , scroll to domains and select Add Website.
- Add your new domain name and set a password for it. These will also be the credentials to access an FTP client. Once done, click add website.
- If you haven’t verified ownership of your domain, this notification will appear. Simply follow the instructions.
Attention! Please note that the domain change can take up to 24 hours for the domain to propagate completely.
After the propagation period is over, your new site address should be added to your hosting account.
Using cPanel
- Access your account, navigate to domains -> Additional domains.
- In the section Create an addon domain, fill in the address of the new domain. The subdomain and document root will be filled in automatically.
- If you want to create an FTP account for the new addon domain, simply check the box Create an FTP account associated with this addon domain. Doing so will bring up additional settings such as username and password.
- Once you have filled in all the options, click add domain.
Please note that added domains will not work unless you add the correct DNS records. One of the most efficient ways to look up DNS records is to use the nslookup commands.
You can also use a to find different types of DNS records.
3. Copy all core WordPress files from your old domain
Moving all your website content to the new domain is easy with the help of a backup. Especially when you don’t switch to a new hosting provider.
Download your backup file from the hosting control panel or directly copy the folder of your old domain to the new one.
Below, we will walk you through the steps of moving your website content to a new domain via File Manager. Before applying the following steps, make sure that your addon domain has been successfully added to your account.
- Access your hPanel control panel and navigate to Files -> File Manager.
- Check if you have both domain folders in File Manager.
- Click on the domain folder you want to move content from and open the directory public_html.
- Select all the files and click the button Copy if you want to leave a copy of the files on the old domain name. Otherwise, click Move to fully transfer all content to your new WordPress address.
- Clicking on either of the two options will open the following popup window.
- click on Change and specify the folder path of your new domain. In this example, it should look like this: domains/newdomain.tld/public_html
In the meantime, if you’re changing hosts, you’ll need to download your backup and upload it via or . Next, import your database through phpMyAdmin and update the WordPress configuration file. This way, both of your sites will stay online.
4. Change the URL and site address
The next step in changing your WordPress address is to update the existing URL and site address. This helps provide a seamless user experience for your visitors and makes it easier for web crawlers to find and index your content.
There are several options to do this, from accessing the WordPress admin panel to updating the WordPress database through phpMyAdmin. Let’s go through the methods one by one.
1. Use the WordPress admin panel
The first and most common method is to add your new address to the general WordPress settings. Do this by going to Control Panel -> Settings -> General. Then substitute the current address of WordPress (URL) and the site address (URL) for your new URL.
Make sure both addresses match, unless you are setting a designated home page for your WordPress site. Once done, click Save Changes.
However, those fields may be grayed out because fixed values have been set in your file wp config. In this case, follow the steps in the next section.
2. Through the wp-config.php file
To reflect the changes in the WordPress configuration, you will have to edit the file wp-config.php.
The file wp config it is usually located in the root directory of your WordPress site. Simply access it at…
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