How to Transfer a Domain to WordPress

How to Transfer a Domain to WordPress

Last modified: May 21, 2022

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Are you looking to build your first or a new WordPress website? Do you already have a domain that you would like to use for that WordPress website? In this article, we detail how to Transfer a domain to WordPress.

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Why Transfer a Domain to WordPress

There are many reasons why you might want to transfer a domain to WordPress. The first is because you want to swap your website infrastructure to a WordPress website. There are numerous benefits to this:

  • It is easier to use.
  • There are lots of functions that can be added to your website.
  • Design limitations are almost non-existent.
  • There is a lot of community support.

Another reason why you might want to transfer a domain to WordPress is that you’ve just bought a new domain for a new project. And you would like your new website that is on a test server. You want it on your own custom domain, so will need to transfer it.

Is it Easy?

Technically speaking it might be easier to have the domain on a server and then transfer the WordPress website over to the domain. There are numerous website hosts that can do this for you. It will usually take between 24-72 hours to complete. And it is best to do this when you’re not expected to be busy.

However, it is relatively quick.

What Problems Are There?

One of the big problems that you might have is when you have a website that has had old URLs embedded and when a new domain is added, these are then taken away. That means whenever someone clicks on those links on the website, the site tries to take them to a URL that doesn’t exist anymore.

This is a user experience nightmare. However, there are options that allow you to change all the URLs mentioned within a website, in bulk, to the new domain.

Best Way to Transfer a Domain to WordPress

The best option for transferring the domain to a WordPress website is to speak to your hosting provider. They should offer a service and can connect the two. If this is not an option, then you will want to download all your website files onto a local drive and then you can upload them to the new domain on the server.

This can take several hours to do.

You will also need to check all elements on your website over. Check links, images and text. Sometimes in the transfer things can go wrong and you might need to spend several hours correcting the simple errors on your website.

Another thing to consider is whether your website needs the new domain or whether you can enact a 301 redirect from the new domain to your existing website. If you’ve got a custom domain like buycars.com and you’ve got a new domain buybigcars.com, you might just want to redirect buybigcars.com to buycars.com.

Final Word: How to Transfer a Domain to WordPress

Above are the simple instructions on how to transfer a domain to WordPress in just a few steps. It is simple and easy to do but it is a long process. Results should take about 24-72 hours to finish.

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