Famous Bloggers

10 Steps to Moving Your Blog to a New Domain Name

New Domain Name

First of all, I’d highly recommend that you only move your blog to a new domain name if its absolutely necessary.

This means that when you first set up your blog, spend a decent amount of time making sure that you choose the right domain name for your blog.

If not you might have to go through a difficult process that I just went through.

Here is the process for WordPress blogs:

  1. Purchase the new domain name.
  2. Install WordPress on the new domain name.
  3. Backup the already existing blog’s database.
  4. Update to the latest version of WordPress within your hosting and wp-admin.
  5. Copy all WordPress files (excluding the wp-config file) from the already existing blog to the new site in your hosting application or FTP.
  6. Copy the database from your already existing blog to the new site, in your hosting application.
  7. Within the new WordPress site, in wp-admin, under settings change the two URL’s to the new domain name.
  8. If some links are still pointing to the old site, run the MYSQL code explained here in PHPMyADmin.
  9. Go over the new blog and make sure its the same as the old one, and everything is functioning.
  10. If you want, redirect the old domain name to the new one using a 301 redirect which could be easily done in your hosting account.

There are many ways to go through this process

This is only one!

I myself went through this process only a few days ago. I did it because I was at a point where changing my domain name was the only way to expand. My blog had transformed from a personal blog to a popular, multi-authored, young entrepreneur blog and yet the domain name was still my name, Ben-Lang.com. I made the decision to change my domain name to EpicLaunch, although many people advised me to rethink my decision. Changing your built-up brand name is quite a risky move.

I can tell you that changing the domain name wasn’t a pleasent experience, it was frustrating and very time consuming. That’s another reason I recommend that you do this only if you must. If you ever decide to, feel free to add a comment  for advice and help. Believe me you’ll most likely need it.

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