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How can switch domain after the migration?

Do you want to switch domain names after migrating your shopping cart? This guide will help you how to get the job done.

To start with, let us clarify two basic terms:

  • DNS (Domain Name System) – is defined as a phonebook of the internet and through it, humans can access information online.  When you search a website by its address through an internet browser, DNS will translate domain names to IP addresses so browsers can load Internet resources of the requested Internet page.
  • NS (Name Server) – A name server is a computer application that implements a network service for providing responses to queries against a directory service. In most cases, websites have two name servers to point to.

Here are the three most common situations you might find yourself in prior to the domain name switch:

  1. Both of your stores hosted by the same provider and under the same domain. Yet, your target store is in the subdirectory.
  2. Both of your stores are hosted by the same provider. Yet each has a different domain name.
  3. The source and target stores are hosted by different providers, but under different domain names.

Let’s go into detail of each case:

Case 1: Same domain but target store is in the subdirectory

Assuming that the Source Store is source.com and Target Store is source.com/target-store

  • Log in to your FTP
  • Give your source store any other name (source.com -> abcd.com)
  • Create a new folder and give it the same name as your source store folder’s name
  • Move all data from the Target Store folder (abcd.com/target-store) to the folder, you’ve just created and renamed – (source.com) to finish the switch domain process.

Case 2. Same provider but different domains

  1. Log in to your hosting provider admin account (or wherever your domain is registered)
  2. Go to Domains menu. (This menu name might be different within different hosting companies) 
  3. Select the domain you need
  4. In the domain management menu – select Manage DS Records, below the Name Servers title
  5. Fill in the new name servers into the appropriate fields.
  6. Click to save the changes
  7. Please note that in this case after you perform the procedure of domain name switch your target store will be unavailable during domain procedure switch for 24-48 hours.

Here are the three most frequently occurring reasons why your domain name leads to the old online store:

  1. Your domain details still include the information of your old DNS. To solve this, you have to modify your domain details so that they would point to the DNS of your new hosting provider.
  2. Your source store hosting provider still keeps your domain details in its DNS. To solve this, reach out to your hosting provider support and ask them to remove the data;
  3. Domain changes have not been spread among the DNS yet. To solve this: remain patient, domain switch is not a single-click procedure and requires time for the changes to be processed. Once you don’t receive any response after 48 hours, you should contact your hosting providers to report the problem.

If you don’t have time to switch domain on your own, LitExtension offers Change DNS and switch domain service that will help you.

 

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