Change your website name

Definitions

Changing your website name means changing the domain name (URL) used to access it. This does not change your website, only the domain name used to access it.

Before you start

Use this guide to change your website name for free. If you prefer our team to handle it or need assistance during the process, submit a support ticket (service fees apply).

✅ Website name changes can be handy if you’re rebranding or simply want to use a different domain on the same website.

⚠️ This steps in this guide are to change the name of a WordPress website.

🚨 If you run into errors or problems while attempting to change your website name, restore from backups right away. 

ℹ️ This guide covers each step in a general guidelines format. If you’ve previously completed a step or have a custom setup, go directly to the section that corresponds best to your requirements.

Step by step

Register your new domain name

To change your website name, you need to register a new domain name.

1. To register your domain with us, complete all these steps: Register a domain name with us

ℹ️ Note: If you register your domain name with us, your nameservers will be automatically set to ours.

2. Or, register your domain name externally, and apply our nameservers to your domain name

Add your domain name to your hosting account

1. Once your new domain is registered, open this guide and complete all the steps: Add a new domain name to your hosting account

2. Wait approximately 1 hour for SSL coverage to activate on your new domain. If your SSL hasn’t installed automatically, go ahead and manually install your SSL certificate.

Move your website to your new domain name

You will now move your website to the new domain name.

In our example, we will change our website name from infoceptor.com to cloudhelpcenter.com

  • Old website name: infoceptor.com
  • New website name: cloudhelpcenter.com

1. Go to your hosting control panel

2. Click on the File Manager button

3. Double click on the domains folder

4. Find your old website name’s domain name folder and double click on it

5. Double click on the public_html folder

6. To the left of the Name column, check the box to select all of your files

7. Once you’ve selected all of the files, do a right-click. From the dropdown, select Copy/Move to…

8. You’ll now get a Copy/Move popup. In the New Path field, put in the folder path where the new website domain name’s public_html is located. In our example, cloudhelpcenter.com is the new domain, so the path would be:

/domains/cloudhelpcenter.com/public_html

9. Once you’ve put in the new folder path, click the Move button. Note: Keep the Overwrite toggle ON (it is set like this by default, so do not click it).

⚠️ Note: After you click Move, you may get a message at the bottom of your screen indicating that certain files can’t be overwritten. That’s okay. Simply refresh your page and it’ll clear the message.

10. Return to your hosting control panel homepage

11. Click on the Terminal button

12. In the terminal session, you will put in a series of commands which will update your website links from the old website name to the new one. Please review the Important Notes: before continuing.

Important Notes:

✔️ Type the commands in the exact order they appear below, one by one. Once you put in a command, click ‘Return’ or ‘Enter’ on your keyboard.

✔️ In any command you see infoceptor.com and cloudhelpcenter.com – replace them with your old website name and new website name. As a reminder, we are changing our website name from infoceptor.com (old) to cloudhelpcenter.com (new).

✔️ Open a ‘Notes’ application or an editable document on your computer to copy and paste your commands, allowing you to modify them when needed before entering them into your terminal session.

1st command

cd domains

2nd command

ℹ️ Note: Put in your new website name.

cd cloudhelpcenter.com

3rd command

cd public_html

4th command

ℹ️ Note: Your command may go on multiple lines or ‘curl’ depending on your screen resolution. That’s okay.

wp search-replace 'https://infoceptor.com' 'https://cloudhelpcenter.com' --all-tables --dry-run

13. After running the 4th command, verify that you get a Success: message and a table replacement number above 0, and then move to the 5th and final command.

ℹ️ Note: The number of replacements depends on the website and database size; it can vary from a few to many but should always be above 0.

5th command

ℹ️ Note: Your command may go on multiple lines or ‘curl’ depending on your screen resolution. That’s okay.

wp search-replace 'https://infoceptor.com' 'https://cloudhelpcenter.com' --all-tables

14. After running the 5th command, verify that you get a Success: message again and the table replacement number above 0.

15. You are done with the Terminal session. Click on Disconnect and then the Back button to return to your hosting control panel main page.

Sync your WordPress Manager

The next step is to sync your WordPress Manager, to replace your old website, with the new one.

1. Go to your hosting control panel

2. Click on the WordPress Manager button

3. Find your old domain installation and click the down arrow V

4. Scroll down and click the Remove button

5. Click the Remove Installation button

6. If you get a popup, click the OK button on the Are you sure you want to remove this installation?

7. Click on the Return to WordPress Management button

8. On the WordPress Management page, click the Scan button

9. On the Import Installations page, click the Start scanning for installations button

10. You’ll see your new website name listed. Click the Return to WordPress Management button.

11. Your WordPress Manager is now synced up. At this point, you can log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.

Remove the default ‘under construction’ page (troubleshoot)

Sometimes, after you’ve completed all the steps above, your new website will show an ‘under construction’ page, similar to the one below. If you see this page, instead of your website, follow the steps below to fix it.

1. Go to your hosting control panel

2. Click on the File Manager button

3. Double click on the domains folder

4. Find your domain name folder (of your new website name) and double click on it

5. Double click on the public_html folder

6. Inside of your domain folder, look for a file called index.html

7. Right-click on your index.html and Remove it, here is an example of the process:

8. Refresh your web browser page, you should now see your new website loading and the ‘under construction’ page gone

Remove your old domain name (optional)

If you no longer have any use for your old website name on your hosting account, delete it.

1. Log in to your hosting control panel

2. Click on the Domains button

3. Check the box next to your old domain name

4. Click the Delete button

5. Check the Remove Directory Content box and click the Confirm button

Cancel your old domain name registration (optional)

If you no longer want to keep or own the domain name registration for your old website name, make sure to cancel its registration.

  • If your old domain name is registered externally, submit the cancelation request with that provider.