How to Move a Website to a Different URL in WordPress

If you are the owner of a WordPress website and you want to move it to a new domain or server then you have come to the right place. In this article, we will teach you how to do this in the easiest way possible. You will not need to touch a single line of code to make this happen. It is completely hands-off. This method will allow you to move your existing site over to a new domain without any downtime or problems. So let’s get started.

The Basics

The first step is to make sure that you have the required hosting and domain names. If you do not have these items then you can either purchase them from a company like Bluehost or use a free service like CloudFlare. You will also need to consider the availability of the new URL. It might be that the domain you want to move to already exists or is taken so you will need to check with the hosting company or domain registrar to find out if this is the case. If it is available then great! If not then you will need to find another domain or use a free service to register the new one. Of course, you will also need to ensure that you have a WordPress installation at the new URL. You can either purchase a WordPress installation from a company like Bluehost or use a free hosted WordPress installation like WordPress.com to create your site. In either case, make sure that you transfer the ownership of the domain or push the button to create a new account at your new location. Once this is complete then you are ready to move forward.

Get Organized

The next step is to get everything organized. This means that you will need to back up your old website, move your content over to the new place, and then set up the redirects so that when a visitor clicks on a link or comes across a category on your old website then they are automatically sent to the new location. You can use third-party services like Google Analytics to track traffic and stats on your old and new sites. This will help you determine how you can optimize your content to get more visitors. It is also a good idea to use a tool like Google Analytics to monitor how people are finding your site and the overall performance of your redirects. This will help you determine if any changes you make to the code are having the desired effect or whether you need to make further adjustments.

Code It

Now that you have everything prepared, it’s time to write the code. For this, you will need to use a tool like Bluehost or WordPress.com to create a new site. These services have a wide range of options which you can use to create the perfect website. Once you have created the site, it’s time to move over the content from the old site to the new location. To do this you will need to use a tool like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or an online content migration service like WP Migrate. To move the content over you will need to log in to your new WordPress installation and then use the built-in FTP client to transfer the files from the old to the new site. During this process, you will need to take care not to overwrite any of the files or folders on the new site with the same name as this will cause serious problems in the future. Instead, find a unique file name for each of the items you want to move over and then confirm the upload by clicking on the confirm button. This will ensure that everything is organized and there are no data loss issues. Once this is done, you can test the site to ensure that all the files are where they should be and that the redirects are working as expected. If everything is okay then great! You can now go live with the site.

Take Care Of The Redirects

The last step is to take care of the redirects. For this, you will need to visit your site’s settings page and then click on the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tab. Here, you can specify the URL you want to move the site to, as well as the redirects for the various pages and posts on your site. You can use the built-in tools in WordPress to create these redirects or you can use a third-party service like Easy Redirects. If you decide to create the redirects yourself then be sure to use the canonical tag to tell search engines that your old posts are now on a different domain. This will ensure that your old articles do not impact your new site’s SEO.

In case you did not use one of the above-mentioned services to migrate your site then the next step is to check the admin section of your new WordPress installation to see if there are any redirects already set up. If so, there will be a link at the top of the page that takes you to the Settings page. Here, you can either select the default redirect or click on the Plus (+) icon to remove all of the redirects and then add the new ones you want to use. Make sure that you use a tool like Bluehost or WordPress.com to set up your redirects as these services are very easy to use and configure.

At this point, your new site will be live and you can continue to make changes and optimize it as you see fit. Be sure to take care of the redirects so that when a visitor clicks on a link or comes across a category on your site then they are automatically sent to the new location. This will help you gain more traction with your site and convince more people to visit it.