How to Use the cPanel/WHM Transfer Accounts Tool
10 March 2019Most Popular Types of Website You Can Create
15 March 2019As your website grows and changes, you may find that its existing domain name no longer suits your needs. Although changing your domain is simple, it can have a negative effect on your site’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) if you’re not careful.
SEO plays a major role in the success of your website, particularly when it comes to visibility and traffic. Fortunately, there are ways to switch your domain name without any lasting effects. This means you can make the change, and still continue to rank highly in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
In this post, we’ll briefly discuss the importance of SEO, and then explain how to switch your domain without damaging your site’s rankings. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Backup Your Site
If you using Managed WordPress Hosting or TDWS CloudSites it is extremely easy to manage backup with us! When you host with TD Web Services, no need for any complicated plugins or anything.
TDWS Clients are able to create a backup in the Backup Manager. This allows customers to differentiate between the backups they created by themselves and technical backups of their subscription. The technical backups happen when TDWS Support back up customer subscriptions as a part of a larger backup. For example, when the TDWS Support creates a server-level backup, all customer subscriptions are backed up as well, and they are displayed to the customers as subscription backups created by the System Administrator.
Step 2: Transfer Your Site to Its New Domain
There are multiple ways to transfer your site to new domain.
- Automated Transfer via TDWS WordPress Manager
- Manual Transfer
Automated Transfer using WordPress Manager
WordPress migration has never been simpler.
Manual Transfer
We have covered this section in detail in our Previous Post: How to Transfer WordPress Site to a New Domain
Step 3: Inform Google About the Change
Now that you’ve moved your site to its new domain, you’ll need
We also recommend 301 Redirect using .htaccess from OLD domain to new domain. 301 Redirect will inform Google Bots that your domain has shifted to a new one. Using 301 redirect you will be able to retain all your SEO Rankings.
To setup a 301 permanent redirect, FTP/SFTP to your server and add the code below at the top of WordPress’ .htaccess file.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldsite.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.oldsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://newsite.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]
The Easy Way Out
If you are a TD Web Services clients, just open a ticket with us