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If you own a business, you know the importance of a website, especially in today’s digital landscape. One vital aspect of every website is the domain name. Finding a great domain for your site comes with several benefits, such as making it easier for clients to find your business. If your current URL doesn’t deliver the expected result, you may have to change it. Before we describe how to change a site URL, let’s go over some definitions.
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, a unique identifier that locates a resource on the internet, such as a specific page, website, or file. Every site URL consists of multiple parts, and each has varying effects on your search engine optimization and your site’s security.
A URL has four parts, including:
A URL change is simply altering your existing site’s URL to a better domain that makes sense to your business or is easier to remember.
There are several reasons why people consider changing their site URL. Some of the major reasons include:
If you want to transition to a different industry or start selling different products, you can consider changing the domain name to reflect your new business name which makes it a good reason to change your URL. You can also consider maintaining your older domain and redirecting it to the new one. This helps to transfer over any SEO value.
Another reason to change your site URL is when considering a new TLD or you have purchased a new URL. This process requires less work since there aren’t any website changes needed. Also, when you migrate your site to a shorter domain, users won’t get puzzled when redirected to a different and longer domain.
Once you decide to alter your site URL, here is how to do it and still maintain your rankings.
If you purchase an older domain, do a thorough search on archive.org to see the history of the actual site pages displayed on it. If you get any results, check if there is any low-quality content or spam.
Make an inventory of the existing SEO status to enable you to make a before and after comparison. Google Search Console avails lots of useful reports such as:
The process of migrating your website files to a new domain depends on your hosting situation. If the new domain utilizes the same hosting service, the hosting company will most likely create a new folder. Simply copy the files to the new domain. On the other hand, if the new domain has a different hosting service, export the files from the old hosting location and upload them to the new host.
Redirects play a crucial part in driving traffic from your old domain to the new one and help Google understand your content has shifted to a different home. You need a wild card redirect to ensure that each page points to the new location. Add this redirect to the hosting account in the .htaccess file.
Do this via the Change of Address feature on Google Search Console, which requires you to start by adding and verifying your new domain. Alternatively, you can submit sitemaps in GSC for your new and old domains. This way, Google is aware of all 301 redirects you have previously put.
The easiest way to change your site URL is by accessing the WordPress admin area. Simply go to your settings, change the URLs under Site Address and WordPress Address options, and save changes. Make a WordPress database backup, then go to the web hosting dashboard and click the phpMyAdmin icon.
Alternatively, you can change the URLs directly in WordPress using PHPMyAdmin. Scroll down the options on the displayed table and locate the row with site URL and home options. Tap the pencil on the left to edit the rows and change the option value field to a new URL and save change via the Go button.
If you are unsure of your WordPress theme, you can use the wp-config.php file. Add the URLs to this file in the root folder of your site. Connect your site via the FTPO client and then edit the wp-config file to save changes.
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