How to move your domain to a new website

You have a new website and want it to appear at your existing address. This is a common moment for things to go wrong: email stops working, the site is down for a day or old Google rankings are lost. With a little planning, none of that has to happen.

Step 1: find out who controls the domain

Find out where your domain is registered (the registrar) and who has the login. For .bg domains this is managed through the Bulgarian registry, Register.bg, and its partners; for .com and others, through a domain registrar or your hosting provider. Very often the domain was registered years ago by a former web designer. Get access, and make sure the domain is registered in your business's name. More in domain and hosting explained.

Step 2: decide whether to point or transfer

ICANN explains what a domain transfer between registrars involves and what to check before starting one [1].

There are two different things people call "moving a domain":

• Pointing the domain to the new website by changing its DNS settings. The domain stays where it is registered. This is enough in most cases.
• Transferring the domain registration to another registrar. This is optional and involves unlocking the domain and an authorisation (EPP) code. Note that many domains cannot be transferred shortly after registration or a previous transfer.

Step 3: protect your email

If your email uses the same domain, the DNS records for email (MX records and related settings) must stay correct when you change the records for the website. Write down the current settings before changing anything. This is the step most often missed. MX records tell other mail servers where to deliver email for your domain [2].

Step 4: protect your Google rankings

Google's guide to site moves recommends exactly this: permanent redirects from each old address to its new one [3].

If the new site has different page addresses, set up 301 redirects from the old addresses to the matching new ones. This tells Google, and anyone with an old link, where the page has moved. Also:

• keep important pages and their content where possible
• update your sitemap and submit it in Google Search Console
• update the website link in your Google Business Profile

See SEO for a business website: where to start.

Step 5: switch at a quiet time

DNS changes can take from minutes to a day or two to reach everyone. Make the change at a quiet time, with the new site ready and tested, and the old one still available until the switch is complete. Make sure the new site has a valid SSL certificate: what is an SSL certificate.

Moving a domain is easy when you know who controls it, protect your email and redirect your old pages.

Let someone do it

This is a job where experience saves headaches. When we launch a site for a client, we handle the domain, DNS, email records, redirects and the SSL certificate as part of the launch: see how it works.

References

1. ICANN. "FAQs for Registrants: Transferring Your Domain Name." icann.org
2. Wikipedia. "MX record." en.wikipedia.org
3. Google Search Central. "Site moves with URL changes." developers.google.com