Change your blog name without affecting traffic

Changing name of your blog is actually not a good idea if you have good ranking on Google. But sometime it may be a good idea also, like if you have found a new name for your blog which is perfect and will help you alot.

Why change your blog name ?

1. Rebranding                                                                                                                                                    You may be rebranding you blog name because you may have started your blog just for fun but now you have good ranking on Google and have good number of daily visitors & you want to change it’s name to something else.
2. Blog merg                                                                                                                                                    May be your and another blog has merged into one blog and now you can’t have your name or another blog name as new name. And want to change name of both the blog’s into another.
3. Legal reason                                                                                                                                                   Sometime you knowingly or unknowingly may have included trademark of other companies in domain name of your blog and now you have to change it to something else. Like you can’t include WordPress if you have blog related to WordPress or other brand names.

  Reason can be anything

. Today I am going to tell you how you can actually change your blog name without losing your traffic and Google ranking.

Before you change your blog name, know these things first :-

1. Choose perfect name
2. Check domain available or not
3. Match your domain with social media account
4. Tell your readers
5. Search domain on Google

Also Read: Dofollow vs Nofollow Backlinks

1. Choose perfect name: Choose a perfect name for your new blog. Choose a name that is totally unique from other. Make your domain name short and easy to remember. According to research domain name of approximately 12 character are best. Don’t include any brand name in your domain name. Like if your blog is related to WordPress then don’t include WordPress in your domain name but you can use WP in your domain name.
2. Check domain available or not: Choosing name only is not enough for you to change it. You also need to see either the domain name is available or it has been taken. Go to AGMWebHosting to see either the domain is taken or not. You can also contact domain owner if they are will sell their domain or not.
3. Match your domain with social media account: If you have a blog then you may also have social media account’s of your blog where you share new article to your readers. Before you change your blog domain name see either there is social media account available of the new domain you are going to change to.
4. Tell your readers: Before you change your domain name, change it to your reader that you are going to change your domain name soon. Use your social media account and also email to your readers about your blog name change. In this way readers will be aware about it.
5. Search domain on Google: Before you buy any domain check the history of that domain name. Go to Archive to check the history of the domain you are going to buy. And also search that domain in Google to see either the domain has been banned by Google, this is very very important to check. If you are going to use Google AdSense in your site then you must see if the domain has been banned by AdSense or not.

How to change domain name ?

Step 1: Install Duplicator plugin in WordPress

Go to your admin dashboard of old site and activate Duplicator plugin and create new Package in that plugin.

Don’t forget to download the file by clicking on “One-Click Download”.

Step 2: Create data base for your new domain

Now you need to create data base for your new domain name.

Note the database name, username, and password cause you need them in the next step.

Step 3: Upload file to root directory

Now again go to cPanel of your new domain and click on File Manager.

Then go to public_html in File Manager and upload both installer and archive file in public_html, and make sure there is no any other files in that directory.

Step 4: Setup new site

Once both the files are uploaded in public_html of File Manager go to following link in new tab –

http://webtopic.com/installer.php


change webtopic.com with your new domain name.

This will open Duplicator wizard, complete the wizard to migrate all files to new domain name and also input the database name, user and password correctly which you have created while making database.

Step 5: Setup 301 redirect

This is final and one of the most important step.

Basically 301 redirect will redirect all the users who visit your old domain to new one

like if you have written article on Podcast or Vlog and it’s URL was

http://webtopic.com/podcast-or-vog

then user visiting this link will go to

http://your-new-domain.com/podcast-or-vlog

To setup 301 redirect go to File Manager of your old domain and go to .htaccess file and write below code at the top of it.

Don’t forget to change webtopic.com with your domain name.

And that it, it may take some time and then all your visitors will be redirected to your new domain.

What to do after changing name ?

After you have successfully changed your domain name to new one then the first thing you need to do is to add your new domain name to Google Search Console. In this way your new domain will also start getting indexed in search result and Google will also know that the site has been migrated to new domain.

If you have any question then fell free to ask us in the comment sections below.