Moving a website to a new domain name
Rebranding or switching to a better domain? You can move your existing website to a new domain name on the same hosting account. In these steps, old-domain.com is your current domain and new-domain.com is the one you’re moving to.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”- Register
new-domain.com, or point it to your hosting account using our nameservers,nsa.ruachost.comandnsb.ruachost.com. - Make a backup of your files and database.
Step 1: Add the new domain in cPanel
Section titled “Step 1: Add the new domain in cPanel”- In cPanel, open Domains and click Create A New Domain.
- Enter
new-domain.com. - To serve the new domain from the same files, tick Share document root so it uses
public_html. To keep the two sites separate, untick it and copy your files into the new domain’s folder instead. - Click Submit.
See Using the cPanel Domains tool for more detail.
Step 2: Secure the new domain
Section titled “Step 2: Secure the new domain”Once the new domain points to us, cPanel’s AutoSSL issues a free SSL certificate for it automatically, usually within a few hours. To start it straight away, open SSL/TLS Status in cPanel and click Run AutoSSL. See Your free SSL certificate.
Step 3: Update your site’s address
Section titled “Step 3: Update your site’s address”WordPress: go to Settings → General and change WordPress Address and Site Address to https://new-domain.com. Then use a search-and-replace plugin to replace old-domain.com with new-domain.com in your content. See Changing the domain in WordPress.
Other applications: change the site URL in your app’s settings or configuration file.
Step 4: Redirect the old domain
Section titled “Step 4: Redirect the old domain”A permanent (301) redirect sends visitors and search engines from the old domain to the new one, so you keep your traffic and search ranking.
- In cPanel, open Redirects.
- Choose Permanent (301), select
old-domain.com, and enterhttps://new-domain.com/as the destination. - Choose Redirect with or without www and tick Wild Card Redirect, so every page goes to the same page on the new domain.
- Click Add.
Keep the old domain registered and the redirect in place for at least a year.
Step 5: Update email and other services
Section titled “Step 5: Update email and other services”- Create email accounts on the new domain and set up forwarders from your old addresses.
- If you use Google Search Console, add the new domain and use its Change of Address tool.
- Update your domain in social media profiles, ads and business listings.
Ruachost servers run LiteSpeed, so clear your cache (for example, Purge All in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin) before you test.