Got a question about domain names. What if you choose a domain name and decide you want to change it, but you have a ton of information on your blog/website? How does this work? Is there some way you can take your current domain name and have it "point" to the new domain name? Will Google eventually point to the new domain name? There has to be a way to do this. I mean, you wouldn't want to "copy and paste" EVERYTHING from your blog/website onto the new one, would you? Or, do you have to start all over again 
Any insight would be appreciated.
Pointing your blog/website to a different domain name
(7 posts) (3 voices)
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BillieJean
MemberPosted 2 years ago # -
Hi BillieJean
Yes, you can change a domain name, but it's not for the faint of heart, and I'd really only suggest it if there is a good, compelling reason, and not just on a whim, UNLESS you have NO ranking at all on your 'old' domain name, because then you have nothing to lose anyway.
Basically you don't point a site to a domain name, it's the other way around, you point a domain name to a site. Your site is really just a collection of files hosted on a server, to which you point your domain name.
And what you'd do is to "redirect" the old URLs to the new ones, so that both Google and site visitors will get to the NEW site even if they click on OLD links.
If you decide to do this, just take it one step at a time:
1. Register your new domain and point it to your site's root folder (if you're using Wordpress, just point it to the folder in which you find the wp-admin folder and the wp-content folder, and let Wordpress do the rest);
2. Create an .htaccess file and in that file put a redirect for EVERY old URL (page and post) of the old site to the corresponding URL (page or post) on the new site, like this:
redirect 301 /pagename http://www.newsite.com/pagename
If you don't include a redirect for every post and page on your old site, people who click on links to those missing old pages will get a 404 error.
There are a gazillion pages on the internet that will teach you how to write an .htaccess file, just Google it....
3. Create a new folder on the server to upload this .htaccess file to
4. Point your OLD domain to the new folder you've created.
Even if you DO have some Google ranking for some pages, following this method should result in Google eventually reindexing your site with the new domain, and you should not lose any rank or results ranking, at least not for very long if you do.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Just to save a few headaches, I wanted to elaborate on Trisha's statement:
If you don't include a redirect for every post and page on your old site, people who click on links to those missing old pages will get a 404 error.
You technically do not have to make a redirect for EVERY post and page if you follow this sample .htaccess that I used on an older domain of mine for Tourfolio;
Example:
redirect 301 / http://www.yournewdomainname.com/The first "/" indicates that everything from the top level of the site down should be redirected. The 301 redirect is one of the best (if not the best) way to ensure any backlinks and search engine crawling will be made aware of your new site.
Posted 2 years ago # -
That's good advice Bryan, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that redirect everything from the old domain to the *homepage* of the new domain?
I think that's definitely preferable to someone getting a 404 error (by far), but it's still probably not as good as doing a redirect from each old page to each new page, because I think if site visitors don't get to the page they were seeking, they *may* leave rather than go through the process of searching for it.
But that can be quite a bit of work, if you have a lot of pages on the old site. I had to do that for a non-profit site I manage in my spare time, when we migrated them from a very old site to a new, wordpress-base site, and all the pages changed from ending with ".html" to the new php style......it was a huge chore as their old site had been around for a few years and had amassed a lot of content....
I THINK if you're using wordpress, and the only part of your URL that's changing in the domain part and the page names are staying the same, there is likely a few plugins that will handle the redirect for you......I'll have to check into that...
I think
Posted 2 years ago # -
Actually, you are correct with that. It will redirect your entire old blog to your new blog's homepage. It is probably the easiest way instead of redirecting each individual post/page plus it also assures that any backlinks to those pages are being brought forward onto your new blog.
I've only had to do it once and I went down the path of redirecting the entire old domain to ensure there were no 404 errors or duplicate content.
Posted 2 years ago #
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