How to move your WordPress blog to a new domain

I have transferred this blog from my old domain, which is dorothy.ababon.com and would like to share you some tips of how I did it. The domain was bought from GoDaddy but I am using Dreamhost as the hosting provider. Here are the steps I did which I hope could help you if you also bought the domain from Godaddy but is going to use Dreamhost for your new domain:

1. In DreamHost Web Panel, under Domains -> Manage Domains, click “Add New Domain/Sub-Domain”. DNS settings will be generated.
2. Click “DNS” under the domain that will be hosted and take note of the IP address for “A” value.
3. Open “C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts.
4. Include the IP address of your new domain like the example below:

65.11.100.102 www.princesswannabe.com

5. Copy the files to the new domain.  For the database, since the same one will be used, there is no need to change wp-config.php.
6. Go to http://www.[yourdomain].com (your site’s domain). You should now be able to see the contents like those from the domain you are going to transfer to your new domain.
7. Logon to your site’s admin page and install “Search and Replace” plugin. Search and replace your old URL and change it with your new domain.
8. Once you are sure that everything is okay, you can now point your Godaddy domain’s DNS settings to Dreamhost DNS. Then remove the IP address from your hosts file.
9. Once you can access your new domain with contents included, redirect from your old site to your new site by modifying your old site’s .htaccess file (I placed it on the first line):

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.[your new domain].com/$1 [R=301,L]

10. Change FeedBurner account to point to the new site.

There, I hope I have documented it properly. It’s quite easy, isn’t it?

Tags: dreamhost, godaddy, mysql, wordpress