Changing domain names on live sites

How to avoid or minimize downtime while changing the domain name of a live production site.

This guide requires an account with two or more sites with custom domain names. If you only have a single site subscription, please get in touch with us.

Scenario:

You have a site on a Tier 1 subscription with the domain example.com, and you want to change it to example.org. You have two subscriptions. Site A on Tier 1 and has the domain name example.com. Site B, also on Tier 1, has no domain name registered.

Example Workflow:

1. Add the domain name example.org to Site B and verify.

2. Add DNS records of Site A to the DNS server of example.net.

3. Detach domain name example.com from Site A.

4. Attach domain name example.net to Site A.

5. Generate an artifact on Site A to rewrite URLs.