HowTo Change Domain name for current blog in 5 steps

In simple HowTo i show you how i migrate one WordPress website from one domain to another.

I got this website: CSSBloom.com, i migrate it to new domain name CSSBloom.net and it works good.

1. First of all i create empty WordPress install at CSSBloom.net, put there simple empty WordPress blog with working mysql base.

2. Move (copy) all files from .com to .net directory. Compare if everything is ok (use Linux and diff command to compare that).

3. Export old database, open it with Notepad++ and replace all cssbloom.com with new cssbloom.net.
Save it and import to new cssbloom.net empty database. Go to cssbloom.net folder on server and point wp-cofig.php to new imported mysql base.

4. Go to .net wordpress site, log in and change:
WordPress address (URL): to .net
Blog address (URL): to .net

5. Redirect domain .com to .net

Go to $HOME/.htaccess, edit it and add:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} cssbloom.com
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.cssbloom.net/$1 [R]

And it works, check this out: www.CSSBloom.com & www.CSSBloom.net !

My Notes

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SideNotes Archive

18 Responses to “HowTo Change Domain name for current blog in 5 steps”

1 Robin Aug 7th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Somehow i’m just about to do this next week. Thanks for the tips.
2 Peter Aug 7th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

No problem, just done it today and as you see it works. Simple, fast and 100% good.

I just figure it out that you even don’t need to setup blank wordpress install in first place, just copy files, change sql base info to new imported base and you got the same WordPress version running with new domain name.

Good luck !
3 Brandon Cox Aug 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Thanks - I’ve been holding off for fear I’ll ruin my search engine rankings - cool.
4 jbj Aug 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Great article. I had many issues with that some time ago, too bad I didn’t found your article before!
5 Peter Aug 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

@jbl nice to hear good words

i think i will migrate my friend website to my server, it will be a big migration (the site is big) and after that i try to find some time to write another post with howto migrate wordpress site from one hosting to another
6 Lucas Aug 17th, 2008 at 5:59 am

This is helpful. I know someone who’s been changing domains like crazy. I’ll send this to him.
7 TheWeblogZone Sep 1st, 2008 at 8:02 am

I wish there’s an easier way to do this. I hope you can make your tips simpler… one that could be understood by non-techies like me.
8 Peter Sep 1st, 2008 at 4:31 pm

I thought it was simple, if you can ask somebody to do this for you it would be better because if something is going to break your sites will be offline.
9 web about money Sep 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am

Great article. Subscribe your rss!!
10 Women's Clothes Sep 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

For the .com redirect, you can always use a 301 redirect as well in the header if you’re not sure on htaccess files.
11 office space Oct 24th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

I created a new .wordpress account, but I want to own my own domain so I can have more control and also improve my blogging skils. Is there any article here that can guide me in setting up my own?
12 Peter Oct 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am

@office space I am sure there are many of them, just type this in Google and read..
13 Office space Nov 26th, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Hi Peter, thanks. I read a very good post about setting up an independent blog,I will be sending a link when I set up it so you can help do a review of my site.
14 Landrover Mar 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

Thanks for the steps.
15 Swanie Apr 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am

Sounds easy when you show it :-p
16 Domain Name Changer Dec 10th, 2009 at 10:27 am

You also can use wordpress domain name changer plugin here Wordpress Domain Name Changer
17 Sahil Dec 18th, 2010 at 11:30 am

understood rest please can you mail, whats the meaning of

Go to $HOME/.htaccess, edit it and add:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} cssbloom.com
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.cssbloom.net/1 [R]

if it is just for redirect, can’t we do it from hosting admin panel? will wait for reply, thanks and yes nice article by the way.