How to Move Your Website to a New Domain
Change files., Create 301 Redirects., Test.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Change files.
The following step is to change all instances of the old domain to the new domain within the files that you have moved over to the new account on your server.
You will almost certainly be able to achieve this very quickly if you just use the find and replace feature in your FTP client (i.e FileZilla, Dreamweaver, etc.).
Making all of your links absolute links rather than relative links is generally the best way to go for SEO purposes so if this is something that you had ever thought about changing over then now would be a good time to undergo and audit all of your website files to change relative links to absolute when suitable. -
Step 2: Create 301 Redirects.
Setting up 301 redirects in your .htaccess (assuming you have a Linux server) under your previous account is very significant.
A 301 redirect will work to automatically and permanently redirect visitors and search engine bots who visitwww.olddomain.com/my-page to www.newdomain.com/my-page.
This is vital from an SEO viewpoint as 301 redirects have the potential to pass through the “link juice” of any backlinks pointing to the old domain to the new domain together with any associated search engine rankings.
This is also crucial from a user point of view as anyone who tries to visit any page on your old domain will be automatically sent to the correct page on your new domain. , Ensure that your nameservers have been set up on your new domain and that the DNS has finished propagating.
Once you make sure that the DNS is resolving correctly for the new domain then it is time to test all of the old pages that you are redirecting from the old domain to the new domain and then also test by looking through every page of the new site and ensure that there are no faults.
If all of the pages of your old site have been indexed by Google then a quick way to test that the 301 redirects have all been set up and working properly is to just do an advanced Google search query that will return all of the pages from your old site indexed by Google.
You can do this just by typing “site:olddomain.com” into Google (without the “”).
Now all you have to do is click on each page and if you have set up the 301 redirects correctly then each time you click on the page link your server should automatically and instantly redirect you to the suitable new page on your new domain.To avoid confusion, it's best to ensure you maintain control of your old site domain for at least 180 days.We all know that moving is never easy – but these steps must help ensure that none of your good web reputation falls off in the process.
Detailed Guide
The following step is to change all instances of the old domain to the new domain within the files that you have moved over to the new account on your server.
You will almost certainly be able to achieve this very quickly if you just use the find and replace feature in your FTP client (i.e FileZilla, Dreamweaver, etc.).
Making all of your links absolute links rather than relative links is generally the best way to go for SEO purposes so if this is something that you had ever thought about changing over then now would be a good time to undergo and audit all of your website files to change relative links to absolute when suitable.
Setting up 301 redirects in your .htaccess (assuming you have a Linux server) under your previous account is very significant.
A 301 redirect will work to automatically and permanently redirect visitors and search engine bots who visitwww.olddomain.com/my-page to www.newdomain.com/my-page.
This is vital from an SEO viewpoint as 301 redirects have the potential to pass through the “link juice” of any backlinks pointing to the old domain to the new domain together with any associated search engine rankings.
This is also crucial from a user point of view as anyone who tries to visit any page on your old domain will be automatically sent to the correct page on your new domain. , Ensure that your nameservers have been set up on your new domain and that the DNS has finished propagating.
Once you make sure that the DNS is resolving correctly for the new domain then it is time to test all of the old pages that you are redirecting from the old domain to the new domain and then also test by looking through every page of the new site and ensure that there are no faults.
If all of the pages of your old site have been indexed by Google then a quick way to test that the 301 redirects have all been set up and working properly is to just do an advanced Google search query that will return all of the pages from your old site indexed by Google.
You can do this just by typing “site:olddomain.com” into Google (without the “”).
Now all you have to do is click on each page and if you have set up the 301 redirects correctly then each time you click on the page link your server should automatically and instantly redirect you to the suitable new page on your new domain.To avoid confusion, it's best to ensure you maintain control of your old site domain for at least 180 days.We all know that moving is never easy – but these steps must help ensure that none of your good web reputation falls off in the process.
About the Author
Kelly Sanders
Experienced content creator specializing in practical skills guides and tutorials.
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