Are you dissatisfied with your existing domain name in WordPress? Probably because your business is expanding, adding new products or services, and you don’t feel like your current domain name is comprehensive enough to incorporate all elements that reflect your business goals. Now what? It would be best to acquire a domain name that best represents your brand value. Fortunately, shifting to another domain name is not at all an unfeasible thing to do, especially when you have a partner like UnityDiv to assist you in redirecting your whole website.
Let’s dive deep! Scroll down and get a step-by-step guide to changing the domain name in WordPress:
Steps to Take Before Changing Your Domain Name
Ok, you must do a few critical things beforehand to avoid any inconvenience amidst shifting your domain:
Choose a New Domain
Important things must be done first. So, you should buy yourself a new domain before making changes to your existing website and regretting the loss of an essential data set afterward. Are you wondering how and where to buy a new domain? Let me get out of this baffling situation! The point is that there are many domain registrars online, and to your pleasant surprise, many hosting services are even willing to offer you free domains.
Note: Suppose you consider the whole process of buying a domain very complex, or maybe it goes over your head every time you try to do it. In that case, it is better to avoid fretting and choose a professional website development agency like UnityDiv for the whole process of domain purchase and relocation.
BackUp All Important Data From Your Website
If you want to protect yourself from having one of the worst nightmares of your life, for heaven’s sake, don’t forget to back up your website. Trust me, nothing can be more worse than losing all your data while shifting to another domain name. Imagine it being like moving your house and realizing that during the whole process, you forgot to take your precious diamond set placed somewhere in the remote corner of your wardrobe. Now, all you can do is sit, have some popcorn, and regret over what you should not have lost but you did…Cry Out Loud….
Not to mention, the whole process of backing up may get complex at times; however, it is a quick way to safeguard your work in case things go differently than your expectations. It is much better to rely on the plugins available in the market to assist you in backing up your website with ease.
Inform Your Audience
Your regular visitors deserve to be informed in advance. If you don’t want to leave them behind and want them to visit your new destinations just as they used to do in your previous address, let them know about your plans right after acquiring a new domain.
Step-by-Step Guide on Change the Domain Name in WordPress
You ought to brace yourself because we are going to dive deep into the technical aspects of the things…Ready? Let’s start!
Change the Domain Name in WordPress
First, go to WordPress and log into your account. Are you done with that? If yes, then go to your WordPress dashboard and, from there, into “Settings” and then “General.” Now, what do you have to do here? Just change the WordPress and Site address to the new domain name and save the settings.
Update the wp-config.php
Leave alone updating wp-config.php; you are someone who doesn’t even know about wp-config.php. If that is so, let me first guide you on that. Basically, it is a crucial file in your WordPress installation that stores all critical data and, as the name suggests, configures information from your website. Now, accessing and updating it to your new domain name is a must thing to do. For that, get a hold of FTP credentials from your hosting provider. Afterward, go to Public_html > wp-config.php, right-click the file, and select edit. All you have to do is to replace the new domain name with the existing one and save. Thats it!
Amend Your WordPress Database
Follow these simple steps if you want to update your WordPress database:
- Go to the hosting control panel
- Locate phpMyAdmin
- Find wp_options
- Add your new domain to “site url” and “home.”
Done and dusted…
Redirect Your Previous Domain
Many websites experience this thing: they change their domain name and find out that many of their previous users are still entering their previous URL into the search bar. This is because in a world where there are so many things to do, how come the majority of your users will take their precious time to figure out where your new address is? Hmm, sounds disappointing? Not that so because you can always add redirects. You know what? Now, every time your user enters your previous domain name, they will automatically reach your new address.
But how do you set up all that puzzling stuff? Here’s how;
- Go to your hosting control panel and select File Manager
- After that, go to the .htaccess folder, right-click on edit
- Add the below-given code, and don’t forget to replace “the new domain” with the actual new name
The code:
#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Final Step: Notify the Search Engines
Ok, don’t forget to say goodbye to your society….or, in the case of the internet, the Search Engines. Do you know why? Because you never know when you can avail yourself of the opportunity to get help from them. As far as Google is concerned, they have tools to change your site address. You just have to fill out a form notifying search engines about the change of address, and they will automatically redirect all your traffic to your new address.
Frequently Asked Questions on this step:
- Where do you fill in the requirements and notify search engines? Click on this link: Change of Address Tool.
- How do I access this change address tool? Here here: The Tool.
Final Thoughts
Congrats! You are done with your domain-changing process. Hopefully, our comprehensive written guide has assisted you well in completing your task. However, if you still feel like you are stranded in the middle of nowhere and want to find more details about that or are interested in delegating your domain-changing task to a professional website development and management agency, feel free to contact UnityDiv, your all-weather partner and your ultimate assistant.
