How-to move a WordPress install from a subdomain or add-on domain to its own domain and have all your back links function as they always have. Let me first say that without the help of the customer service team at BLUEHOST.COM . This never would have been possible. I made this move  while I was diagnosing a scripting error on another domain under this account,  BlueHost was instrumental in tracking down the problem while I focused on moving this other domain. I cant say enough about Bluehost and the patients they have to help not to mention the knowledge they have shown with WordPress. If you have a WordPress install you owe it to your self to check them out, you can find them HERE.

For those who have Bluehost or those who have these options in your Cpanel, this couldn’t be easier. For everyone else, this information is just as good but certain things will have to be done manually. OK, Lets get started, First thing that that needs to be done is to make a full backup of your server. This can be acheived by using “Backups” located in the “files” section of your Cpanel. Under full backup, click “Download or generate full web site backup” . When this completes you will be notified by email (The size of your server will dictate how long this takes). My backups never seem to take longer than 10 – 15mins and I have five domains in total. Once this is done and you have downloaded it to your computer its time to prep your new WordPress installation.  Go back into your Cpanel and click on “Simple Scripts” located under the “Software / Services” section. Once there look under the blogs section and click on “WordPress” This will start the new WordPress install, follow along with the install into your new domain folder.

Now that you have You’re new WordPress install in your new domain location we have to prep it for the next step. To keep it simple make sure you have the same theme installed on your new WordPress install as you did on your old install. Now you need to add your catogorys just like they were on your old location of WordPress to the new installation of wordpress so that when we move your WordPress from the old location to the new location, everything has a home and your down time is next to nothing. After you add all your categories to match you need to install all the plug-ins you’re going to use on your new WordPress install. The plug-ins preferences will not make the transfer so you will need to set  them up all over again, you should not set them up until after your posts are transfered but you can and should have the plugin’s installed and waiting,

Now that your new install is all prep’ed and ready we need to download your “wp-content” folder from your old location, this will require FTP access . Download the wp-content folder to a location on your hard drive. You will also want to download your favicon and Robots.txt file if you use them. Now upload the “wp-content” folder you just downloaded and overwrite the existing “wp-content” folder in your fresh WordPress install.  this will transfer all the images you have on the old install to the new install. now upload the two files mentioned earlier (favicon and Robots.txt) to the root of your new domain. This won’t apply to everyone, but if you have set up any sub directories for your blog, you’ll want to grab those files as well and add them to you’re new location the same way they appeared on the old location.

Now we are going to export your old WordPress install to your computer. You can find the export option under the Tools tab in your old WordPress dashboard. Once this is done, move to you’re new wordpress install, under the same tab (Tools) select “Import”, use the file that was exported and saved on your hard drive earlier. Now Head into the Design and Plugin’s tabs and double check that you have the same theme and plugin’s activated as the old domain name. Update all of your settings to match the old domain, this includes all plugin’s and any categories that might not have made the move correctly. Ok, now your going to want to View your  new install to ensure that everything looks like the old site, on the new domain  Test some of the functionality as well to ensure everything is working properly. Everything should be in order, Now download the “update URL’s plugin” from with in your new WordPress install and enter your old domain URL and the new domain URL where appropriate .  It will go through all of your old posts and update the domain address of the URL with the new domain address, and it only takes a matter of seconds.  Note:  I wouldn’t update the anchor text, only the domain in the URL.  Repeat these steps for any sub directory’s you may have. Now once that is done you should go and update any PPC (adwords) accounts, your e-mail, feed burner etc.

Almost done, once everything is done and you have all your preferences setup and your catagorys are in order you need to setup the redirect to you’re new install. Those of you who already use Bluehost, simply go back to the Cpanel and look under  the “Domains” section and click “redirects” This should open to the default type “permanent (301)” now add your  old domain and subfolder if applicable, beneath that add your new domain, select with or without www, put a check in the box next to “wildcard redirect” and click add…… your done, now go to your back links and check to make sure everything is forwarding as it should, I check acouple if there working the rest are as well, now you can delete your old install and the backup created in the beginning of this article, make sure you create a new backup of your new domain. I backup at least once a week, it has saved my butt more than once…LOL

If you do not have the options in your Cpanel for redirecting you can acheive the same results by using a 301 redirect on your domain register or by following this. There are a few different places you can set various ‘Redirect’ directives such as your servers main configuration file ( httpd.conf) or within a ‘Virtual Host’ container inside one of your server configuration files, I personally do not work with virtual hosts anything…LOL. The final method and the one we will be discussing here is using your servers directory Auth file A.K.A “.htaccess” file.

The first thing you do is create a txt file named .htaccess if you don’t already have one, if you do, then simply edit the one thats there.
There are a couple different ways to approach this but in its most simple form you can just issue a ‘Redirect’ request in your .htaccess file like so:
Redirect /xyz http://xyzbar.com/xyz
In this example if the client requests

http://myserver.com/xyz/xyzbar.txt,

it will be told to access
http://xyzbar.com/xyz/xyzbar.txt instead.

Now this is not quite complete yet, since we need to specifically send a (301) status code. Without the status argument “Redirect” will send a temporary redirect status (302). So we simply take the above example and change it to:

Redirect 301 /xyz http://xyzbar.com/xyz
OR
Redirect permanent /xyz http://xyzbar.com/xyz

And there is also a specific ‘RedirectPermanent’ command as well so you could just as easily say:
RedirectPermanent /xyz http://xyzbar.com/xyz

I hope this helps, There may be other ways of redirecting other than the permanent (301)  but this has always functioned well for me and seems to be the easiest for me, your mileage may vary.