This blog post will show you how to change your domain name correctly. A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Websites and email services use domain names to identify them on the Internet. Choosing the right domain for your business and website is very important, but sometimes, there is a need to change it due to various reasons. In the following paragraphs, we discuss why we should change domain names and how to change them correctly without downtime and traffic loss to your website.
Table of Contents
Why change your domain names?
In practice, you have very few reasons to change a domain. Typically, once you pick a domain name, your website retains that domain name for a long time. There are, however, a few exceptions to this rule, including:
Rebranding is one of the more common reasons to change your domain name. It can be due to a buyout, a merger, an acquisition, or a managerial decision to rebrand.
Top-Level-Domain availability. After some time, your desired domain may become available with a different TLD (Top-Level-Domain). For example, yourdomain.com may suddenly expire for someone and become publically available. This is a perfect opportunity to replace your existing yourdomain.net. You can keep both and redirect one to another, but you will change your primary domain name.
Changing your top-level domain to a country-specific one is also common practice for businesses servicing local consumers. For businesses serving Canada or Europe predominantly, yourdomain.ca and yourdomain.eu, respectively, could be a better option.
Changing your domain name in the right way
Purchase a new domain from your hosting provider or any provider that offers domain registrations. To register a domain on our website, simply access the following link: Domain Registration.
Point the A record to your server IP address. If you know and can manage the DNS zone of the newly purchased domain, the next step is to point to the A record. If you do not know how to do this, contact your hosting provider. Once you’ve pointed the A record, you need to allow some time for the DNS changes to propagate through the Internet.
New Domain as an alias: Configure the new domain in the web server configuration file as an alias. This is necessary for your website to avoid downtime since the customers will still try to access it via the old domain. Setting up a domain as an alias is different depending on which web server is used or if you are using a control panel such as DirectAdmin, WHM/cPanel, Hestia, etc.
Redirect Rule: Next, set up a redirect rule from the old domain to the new one. This means that when customers enter the old domain URL in the browser, they will be automatically redirected to the new domain. Setting up redirect 301 is different depending on which web server is used. If you use a control panel such as DirectAdmin or WHM/cPanel, redirection rules are pretty simple.
Email Customers: Next, email your customers about changing the domain name so they know to use the correct URL. It would be best if you also rebranded your home page about the new domain.
Disable the Old Domain: This is our final step.You should do this after some time has passed giving your visitors time to adjust and become aware of your new domain. Make sure to check the web server access logs. If the old domain rarely gets accessed, disable it by removing it from the web server configuration file. After this, you will make the new domain a primary one and remove it from the alias list.
Conclusion
That’s it! You have learned some basic information about how to change your domain name correctly.
As you can see, changing a domain name is not that complicated. All you have to do is follow the steps we provided above. We are happy to assist you if you still have difficulties pointing the A record, making aliases, or redirection rules. Sign up for one of our Linux VPS hosting plans and submit a support ticket. We are available 24/7 via live chat or tickets.
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