How to Easily Move WordPress to a New Domain (Without Losing SEO)

Moving your WordPress site to a new domain is a big step that requires careful planning. Changing your domain name can affect your SEO rankings, so it’s essential to handle the process with care.

We’ve successfully navigated the domain-change process numerous times, so we know firsthand the potential pitfalls and how to avoid them.

While temporary SEO fluctuations are inevitable during a domain migration, you can reduce the impact. With the right approach, you’ll be able to quickly regain your search traffic and rankings.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the correct way to move WordPress to a new domain without losing SEO.

Migrating your WordPress site to a new domain name can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. We are here to walk you through every step of the process.

You can click on any of the links below to go to a particular step of migrating your WordPress site to a new domain name:

Video Tutorial

If you’d prefer written instructions, then just keep reading.

What to Know Before You Change Domains

Before you start, there are a few things you should know.

The process of transferring to a new domain will temporarily affect your search engine rankings since Google and other search engines will need to adjust to the changes.

It will also temporarily affect your search traffic. Please keep in mind that this is normal, and it happens to all websites that switch to a new domain.

However, you can dramatically decrease the SEO impact by following this guide. We will show you the right way of moving your WordPress site to a new domain name, setting up proper 301 redirects, and notifying search engines.

Please note that this guide is not for moving a WordPress site to a new host. This is for switching a domain name only. While the process is similar, there are a few extra steps. These extra steps will help you to protect your SEO rankings and traffic.

Lastly, if your old website is on WordPress.com, then you need to follow the instructions in our guide on how to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org instead.

Pre-Steps: What You Need to Get Started

In this guide, we are assuming that you have your WordPress website set up on oldsite.com, and you are trying to migrate it to newsite.com.

We are also assuming that you already have a WordPress hosting account and you are familiar with your web hosting control panel.

You’ll also need to know how to use an FTP client like FileZilla or how to edit files using the File Manager app available in your hosting account dashboard.

In case you don’t have a web hosting provider or are looking to switch to a new one, we recommend using Bluehost (great for small sites + comes with a free domain) and either SiteGround or WP Engine (great for larger sites or online stores).

Once you have those things in place, you are ready to start the process!

Step 1: Create a Duplicator Package of Your WordPress Site

The first thing you need to do is create a full backup of your WordPress site.

You’ll then use this backup to create a duplicate of your website so that you can set up the redirects properly from your old domain to the new one.

While there are many WordPress backup plugins available, we will be using Duplicator for this tutorial.

Duplicator is the best WordPress backup and migration plugin. We have used it to migrate countless websites for our own businesses as well as customers. We have found it to work reliably, even for very large websites.

Note: There is also a free version of Duplicator available, which you can use for this migration. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock more features like automatic cloud backups, 1-click website recovery, easier migrations, and more.

Let’s start by installing and activating the Duplicator plugin on your old domain name. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, the plugin will add a Duplicator menu item in your WordPress admin. You need to go to Duplicator » Backups page and then click on the ‘Create New’ button to create a new backup or copy of your WordPress site.

Duplicator will now initialize the back wizard it will automatically assign a name to this package.

Click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Duplicator will now run some tests to see if everything is in order. If the plugin finds an issue, then you will see a warning with instructions.

If all items are marked ‘Good,’ then click on the ‘Build’ button.

The plugin will now start creating a duplicator package of your website files. Depending on the size of your site, this process may take a few minutes.

Once finished, you’ll see a ‘Download’ option. Clicking it will show you options to download Both Files or download Installer and Archive (zip) separately.

Choose ‘Download Both Files’ to download them to your computer.

The Archive file is a complete copy of your WordPress files. It includes your WordPress themes, permalink settings, plugins, uploads, and any other files created by WordPress plugins.

The installer script is a PHP file that will automate and run the WordPress migration by unpacking the archive file.

Step 2: Create a Database for Your New Domain Name

Before moving your WordPress site to the new domain, you’ll need a new SQL database to unpack WordPress on your new domain name.

If you have already created a database, then you can skip this step.

To create a database, you need to visit your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard, scroll down to the ‘Databases’ section, and then click on the ‘MySQL Databases‘ icon.

We will show you how to locate it on Bluehost, but the basic instructions are the same and should apply to all hosting providers.

Log in to your Bluehost account dashboard and click on the ‘Settings’ button under your website.

Under your site settings, you need to switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.

Scroll down a little to the cPanel section and click ‘Manage’.

This will open the cPanel dashboard.

Scroll down to the Databases section and click on the ‘MySQL Databases’ option.

Note: Your hosting control panel may look slightly different than the screenshots. However, you should still be able to find a Databases section with an option to create a new database.

Simply provide a name for your database and then click on the ‘Create Database’ button.

cPanel will now create a new database for you. After that, you need to scroll down to the MySQL Users section.

Next, provide a username and password for your new user and click on the ‘Create User’ button. Make sure to note the username and password in a safe place.

The new user you just created still does not have permission to work on the database. Let’s change that.

Scroll down to the ‘Add User to Database’ section. First, select the database user you created from the dropdown menu next to the ‘User’ field. Then select the new database you just created and click on the ‘Add’ button.

Next, you will be asked to choose privileges for the user.

Select ‘All Privileges’ and click on the ‘Make Changes’ button to continue.

Your database is now ready and can be used to move WordPress to the new domain name.

Make sure to note down the database name, username, and password. You’ll need this information in the next step.

Step 3: Unpack WordPress on Your New Domain Name

Now, you need to upload the Duplicator files you downloaded earlier to your new domain name.

The Duplicator package includes your WordPress installation as well. This means you don’t need to install WordPress on your new domain.

First, connect to your domain name using an FTP client. Once connected, make sure that the root directory of your website is completely empty.

After that, you can upload the archive and installer files to the root directory. This is usually called public_html.

Once both files have finished uploading, you are now ready to unpack WordPress.

Open a new browser tab and go to the following URL:

http://example.com/installer.php

Don’t forget to replace example.com with your new domain name. This will launch the Duplicator migration wizard.

The installer will look for the archive file and then automatically select options for you on the screen.

Scroll down a little to enter the information for the database you created in the previous step.

Below that, Duplicator will automatically show you the URL of your old domain and your new domain.

If everything looks good, click on the ‘Validate’ button to continue.

Duplicator will now attempt to connect to the database using the information you provided.

Upon success, it will show you a Validation Pass. Otherwise, it will show you a warning with details on how to fix it.

Click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Duplicator will now start importing your WordPress website. Once finished, you will see a success message with an Admin Login button.

Duplicator will automatically update URLs to your new domain name. You can now click on the ‘Admin Login’ button to complete the next steps.

Step 4: Set Up Permanent 301 Redirects

The next step is to point users arriving on your old domain name to the new domain. This is done by setting up 301 redirects.

301 redirects are very important for SEO and user experience. Adding them will allow you to automatically redirect users and search engines to your new domain name.

In other words, whenever someone lands on a post or page on your old domain, they will be automatically redirected to the same post or page on your new domain instead of seeing a 404 error.

To keep your redirects in place, you’ll need to keep your old WordPress installation active so it can continue to redirect to the new one you just created.

There are two ways to set up the redirects. The first method is easy and just takes a few clicks. The second method requires you to edit files manually.

Method 1: Set Up 301 Redirects With All in One SEO

For this method, you’ll need All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website for SEO.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO plugin on your old domain. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation on your old domain, you need to visit the All in One SEO » Redirects page and click on the ‘Activate Redirects’ button.

Next, you need to switch to the ‘Full Site Redirect’ tab and turn on the ‘Relocate Site’ toggle.

After that, you need to enter your new domain name next to the ‘Relocate to domain’ option.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Method 2: Manually Set Up Redirects to New Domain

This method requires you to edit the WordPress .htaccess file on your old domain name.

First, you need to connect to your old site using FTP and edit the .htaccess file.

This will be located in the same directory as your wp-includes or wp-admin folder. Open the .htaccess file and paste the following lines of code at the very top:

#Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
Unchanged: RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Make sure you replace newsite.com with your new domain in the above code.

Once you have applied these changes, then visit your old domain name. It should automatically redirect you to the new domain.

If it doesn’t, then it means the redirection is not set up properly, and your server likely doesn’t support redirect rules. You need to contact the support team at your web hosting company to get RewriteEngine turned on.

Step 5: Notify Google About Your New Domain

Now that you have moved WordPress to a new domain name and set up redirects, it is time to notify Google about your change of address. This will help Google find your new website domain quickly and start showing it in search results.

First, you need to make sure that both your new and old domains are added to the Google Search Console as two different properties. See step 1 in our Google Search Console guide for instructions.

Next, you need to select the old domain name as the active property in your Google Search Console account dashboard.

After that, click on the Settings menu from the left column.

Now, you can click on the ‘Change of address’ tool.

Now, you need to select your new domain from the Update Google section.

Then, you should click on the ‘Validate & Update’ button.

That’s all. Google will now validate that your old domain is redirecting to the new domain and save your changes.

On the next screen, Google Search Console will show you a step-by-step wizard to submit your change of address request.

Notify Your Users About the New Domain Name

While the 301 redirects do their job, it is always good to make a public announcement about the migration.

You can do this by simply writing a blog post on your new site and sharing it on your social media accounts.

If you have an email newsletter or push notification subscribers, then you should send out an announcement to them, too.

This can be helpful in a lot of ways.

First and foremost, your users are more likely to remember the new domain once they read about it.

Second, you can ask your users to let you know if they see any bugs. You alone cannot test your site in every type of browser or system environment, so it’s always helpful to have a fresh pair of eyes look at it.

Bonus Resources

The following articles and tutorials will help you track and regain your SEO rankings after migrating to a new domain name:

• The Ultimate WordPress SEO Migration Checklist (For Beginners)
• How to Check If Your WordPress Blog Posts Are Ranking for the Right Keywords
• How to Track Website Visitors to Your WordPress Site
• Tips to Optimize Your Blog Posts for SEO Like a Pro (Checklist)

We hope that this tutorial helped you move your WordPress site to a new domain name. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free email domain or follow the steps in our complete WordPress SEO guide.

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