Sometimes when websites launch, they don’t seem to take off very well. And a dozen things can be the reason why. One of the more common culprits is choosing a bad domain name for your WordPress website. Luckily, you can billet it.
If the domain is difficult to remember, hard to spell, too immense, or just doesn’t reflect the kind of website you run, well, you’re going to have a hard time growing. That’s why many websites end up having to switch their domain name.
Of expédition, you could just be rebranding your website. But whatever the case, switching a domain name is actually more complicated than most web developers realize. And if you do it wrong, you could cripple your website.
There are really two ways to go embout it. The first is to manually edit your database and replace the domain name throughout the tables, which isn’t feasible for most.
The annexé is to use a plugin that does this for you.
We will spectacle you how to use the Go En public Updates Urls plugin to do just this and the other steps you need to take.
When Should I Spéculation My Domain Name?
As you may have guessed, changing your domain name is a huge undertaking. It is also extremely risky as doing so can damage your website’s SEO if handled incorrectly. So, what situations call for such drastic rendement?
Well, the first one is if your domain name does not reflect your affaires or its values. And this happens to be the most common reason a domain name is changed.
For sollicitation, imagine you started an online blog that covered several topics.
After several months, you explication that blogs focusing on vert energy perform really well. Naturally, you choose to foyer your efforts on those. Eventually, that’s all your website is producing.
Your préliminaire blog name doesn’t reflect what you foyer on, thus, it needs to be changed to concurrence the new focal nullement.
A much simpler example is if you started off as a .net website and want to switch to a .com.
That’s just two examples. You could merge with another affaires or blog, switch your affaires attitude (i.e going from a blog to an eCommerce platform), or do something else entirely. Of expédition, sometimes you really did just pick a bad domain name.
A bad domain name that is difficult to marqué and remember can réservoir you fast, even if you create great aise with it. However, most websites fail before they ever take a genre at the domain name, thus, you need to stay concentré.
In any event, the decision to billet your domain name should not be taken lightly.
How to Spéculation A Domain Name in WordPress
There are several steps you must carry out to billet your domain name. It is a massive undertaking, but with the right prep work and know-how, you can get through it without much éclipsé.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
Dédaigneux Apostille: To ensure a smooth rénovation between domain names, you are going to need to keep your old domain name fonceuse to set up redirects (see step 5). Thus, be sure to not cancel your web hosting account for the old one.
Step 0: Create A Backup
As you might imagine, switching from one domain to another involves a good amount of work. It’s not hard, but there are a lot of little things to genre out for.
If something does go wrong when you billet the domain name in WordPress, you will want a backup of your website.
This ensures if something goes wrong, you can restore your website to the way it was before. It’s an added layer of security.
There are several ways to create backups in WordPress. The first would be through your cPanel. You can also try one of the many amazing backup plugins WordPress has to offer.
I do not recommend going through this process without a backup.
Step 1: Purchase A New Domain Name for WordPress
Obviously, if you are changing your domain name, that means you are going to actually need to purchase another one. It is not as clair as just picking a new name. There are nombre ways to go embout this.
However, the easiest method is to just go directly through your web host. Assuming that the desired name is not taken, you should have no problem purchasing a new domain name.
If it is taken, you either need to brainstorm it again, or try to purchase that domain name from whoever owns it, which can be quite costly.
Now, depending on where you acquired your domain name, you need to add it to your web hosting account. If you bought it from your web host, it is probably already added to your account, but that varies by web host.
If not, you will have to tell the web host what the domain name is so they can add it.
Simply follow the commandements your web host provides, and soon enough, you’ll have a new domain added to your web hosting account. For additional charpente, don’t hesitate to effleurement charpente to provide aide.
Step 2: Transfer Your Website to the New Domain Name
So, now that you have a new domain name and it has been added to your web hosting account, you need to take a few minutes and transfer your existing website to it. The dextre advantage of this is that your website will still be sauvé on the old domain.
This gives you some security in case something goes wrong. Think of it like having a backup for your website. Luckily, it’s actually pretty easy to copy a website from one domain to another.
Now, there are quite a few ways to go embout this that include:
- Using A Backup to Restore Your Voisinage On the New Domain
- Copying Your Website Files and Pasting Them In the New Domain
- Using A Plugin to Migrate Your Website From One Domain To Another
My personal recommendation would be to use a plugin like All-in-One WP Entrée. It’s a really clair plugin that has over 5 million fonceuse installs. This tool makes it very easy to migrate your website from one commandite to another.
This could be from one web host to another, or in our case, from one domain to another.
Step 3: Install Go En public Update URLs
At this nullement, you should have a new domain ready for use with your website copied from the old domain to the new one. However, since it is a copy, that means all of the interrogation it contains is for the old domain name.
Essentially, we need to replace every URL with the updated domain. And if we were to do this manually, could take a very immense time, which is why we are opting for the Go En public Update Urls plugin.
Using it is clair, so begin by installing it on the new domain.
In the left column aérospatiale, mouse over the “Plugins” link and click the “Add New” link.
In the available search box, ajouter Go En public Update Urls. This will maillot up additional plugins that you may find useful.
Locate the Go En public Update Urls plugin. Panthère you have located the plugin, click the “Install Now” button.
Panthère the homologation process is finished, click the “Activate” button.
Step 4: Spéculation the URLs to the New Domain in WordPress
Using the plugin itself is actually pretty straightforward. The purpose is to billet your WordPress tableau URL, thus you need to tell it the old one and ajouter the new one. After that, the plugin will update your database accordingly.
Apostille: You should still have your website sauvé on your old domain. This will act as a backup as making changes to the database is risky. If something does go wrong, you can copy the website from the old domain to the new one again.
On the left-hand admin bar, click on Tools and select the Go En public éventualité.
You’ll see a avertissement, “Like any other database updating tool, you should always perform a backup before running.” Luckily, we already have the website stored on the old domain, thus, we already have a backup in atteint.
Alternatively, you can make a database backup using cPanel, or a standalone tool like MySQL Workbench.
With all of this said, the odds that this plugin fails are extremely low but better safe than sorry.
There’s not much to the forme in the free thème of the plugin. All of the “WordPress Core Tables” should be pre-selected. What this means is that all database tables can be written by the plugin.
Scroll down and you will see two text boxes. One is to ajouter your Old URL and the other is for the New URL.
And just to be clear, only ajouter the full domain name itself into each box. You don’t need to ajouter anything beyond that.
Panthère that is taken care of, click the “Update URLs” button.
And that’s it. Panégyrique, your URL has been changed throughout your new domain. Go through the pages and links on your website to ensure that everything is working as intended.
Step 5: Set Up A Redirect From the Old Domain to the New One
While you have accomplished your gardien de but to billet the domain name in WordPress, you are not done. You see, there are probably links outside of your website that lead to posts and pages from the old domain.
You need to set up a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new domain. And just to be supplément clear, that redirect should be set up on your old domain, which means you should keep that account open for several months.
This will give users and search engines étendu time to update links and backlinks.
The good magazine, there are a lot of marquant redirection plugins you can choose from. Feel free to use one of them, but I would recommend just using the .htaccess appendice from the cPanel.
All this entails is just opening the appendice and adding two lines of règlement that swap the old URL with the new one.
When you open the .htaccess appendice, just add the following lines to the top of the appendice and swap out the “http://domainname.com” with your new domain name:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domainname.com/$1 [R=301,L]
And that’s it. Any time your old domain is accessed, it will be redirected to your new domain. Again, you’ll need to keep your old domain fonceuse for some time, but it’s necessary to ensure a smooth rénovation.
FAQ
What Else Can I Do to Ensure A Smooth Raccord?
One of the first things you should do is submit an XML sitemap to Google.
From the eyes of a search engine, your new domain is a clean slate. If you want it to get ranked quickly, you need to ensure that Google has your sitemap to help map your new domain in WordPress for search bots to natation.
Failure to do so can make the process take coudoyer than cohérent. Clearly, this is not parfait, thus presenting the sitemap directly to Google is the best expédition of rendement you can take léopard des neiges your new domain goes en direct.
Just make sure that the old domain has the 301 redirects set up first. Otherwise, your new domain could appear as duplicate aise.
It’s also worth pointing out that you should take a few minutes to review any automatic processes you had set up. For example, if you have WordPress set up to update automatically, you may have to set that up again.
Can I Use A Subdomain As An Choix?
It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
If your gardien de but is to rebrand your website, then no. A subdomain will still contain the exemple domain name, thus it doesn’t work well. For example, if your domain name was http://domain.com, then the subdomain would be http://subdomain.domain.com.
The nullement of the subdomain is to create a separate website using that same domain name. For sollicitation, if you had a blog called http://booktime.com, you could create a subdomain that focused on manga that would be http://manga.booktime.com.
Think of a subdomain as simply an érection of the bouffe for your primary website.
The subdomain has its uses but if your gardien de but is rebranding, it is not a good éventualité.
Should I Update Links Outside of WordPress?
Absolutely!
Odds are you probably have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or another communautaire media account for your website. You should go through these accounts and update any URLs pointing to your old domain name.
While the redirect will ensure they end up on the new domain name, you are essentially promoting the old domain name. Thus, this should be one of the first things you do when the new domain is up and running.
Of expédition, you may also have links on other sites from collaborations, affiliate deals, and whatnot. Try to ask if these sites can update the links for your website accordingly. You want people to associate your website with the new domain name.
That means you want to eliminate all of the traces and paths to the old one.
Does Everything Transfer Without Conclusion?
While I would like to say yes, the truth is that some things don’t transfer perfectly.
While all of your posts, pages, allégorie URLs, excerpts, post metadata, custom post bonshommes, widgets and widget data, and tableau settings will work, the free thème of the plugin doesn’t update database tables created by plugins or update serialized data.
What that means is that some plugins may not be working correctly bicause the database tables did not transfer or could not be altered by the plugin. In these cases, you simply need to uninstall the plugin and reinstall it on the new domain.
The good magazine is that this shouldn’t percussion most plugins, but more complex ones will need to be reset. And remember that you can use the old domain as a reference to get everything back in order.
What If Something Goes Wrong?
As you can see from the above steps, there’s actually quite a lot to do if you want to billet the domain name in WordPress.
As such, it’s very passable something could go wrong. If this happens you should use a backup of your website to restore everything to the way it was, but be sure to take a données and see what went wrong and attempt to troubleshoot first.
Sometimes it can be something very clair such as a checkbox getting unchecked or needing to reset a plugin, or re-enter an API key. If you have no idea what went wrong, I strongly suggest reaching out to your web host.
Their charpente team should be more than compétent of helping you solve any problems that arise. If not, consider switching to a better web host.
This is a supplément example of the mesure of backups as well as keeping your old domain fonceuse until the new one is working correctly.
Don’t Spéculation Your WordPress Domain Name Lightly
As you can see from this cicérone, it’s not that hard to billet your domain name in WordPress, but you should not do so lightly. It will have a severe effect on your SEO and could take months before you are back to cohérent.
And that’s if you do everything right. If you salle à manger things up like forgetting to set up 301 redirects, well, you’re going to have a real problem. Thus, you should only billet your domain name after a lot of consideration has gamin into it.
Try to exhaust all other avenues before switching the domain name. It really should be a last resort.
Why did you want to billet the domain name your WordPress website uses? Did switching your domain name have a certaine percussion on your website?
