Some help transfering from .co.uk to .com

Ive been hosting a site for about 4 months on a .co.uk using JustHost. Ive recently acquired to .com domain name through godaddy.

I want to make the .com domain the primary address of the site, but I am unsure how to do this. I need to set up redirects on the .co.uk domain so basically all paths will be the same but .com inctead of co.uk.

I am aware in Google webmaster tools I need to do the change of address thing and set up some 301 redirects? But how to do I do all the changes and in what order?

Could anyone provide some or a link to some step byu step instructions on doing this?

Many thanks

 

1. Make sure you have changed your name servers.
2. Make sure you have uploaded web site content.
3. Make sure both web sites, the old one and the new one are working properly.
4. In htaccess file for the old domain name account make the changes for redirect.

 

Hi Rob thanks for the reply,

I have changed the namesservers.

I have contacted JustHost and they are going to set the new .com domain as the master domain on my account.

When I change htaccess file, will all pages on the .co.uk redirect and not just hte homepage? e.g.

www.mydomain.co.uk/folder1/article2 would re-direct to: www.mydomain.com/folder1/article2 ?

Will there be two seperate htaccess files for each domain or just the one still?

 

My new .com domain is now working..

Is there only one htaccess file I need to edit? Can anyone help me out on how to edit it to redirect the .co.uk domain to the .com one?

Many thanks

 

After carrying out this change of domain, now when I search for my site on Google both domains show up in the results! The .co.uk one is top, then the .com one is further down. Will this change in time or have I done something wrong? This is what i did:

1. pointed new .com domain to server where my site is hosted.
2. Set the .com to the main address with my hosting company.
3. Parked the .co.uk domain.
4. Set up 301 redirects for every page from the .co.uk address.
5. Used Googles 'change of address tool' to tell them the .com domain is now the new domain..

Maybe it just takes time for the .com domain to take over form the .co.uk domain? I dont want to get done for having two sites with duplicate content..

 

Actually the domain ranking will be change according to how you SEO your site.

 

I was under the impression that the new domain would take over from the old one and the old one would get replaced by the new one in Google?

I wasnt expecting both domains to show up in Google..

 

Are you using cPanel?

 

Hi, yeah I am using CPanel for my domain managment

 

We have the same host(Justhost) and I done this before. Transfer all files to .com then redirect all urls to new site(cpanel). Transfer it on google webmaster tool. That's it

 

Thanks, I think I got it all done.. one thing I dont understand though 'transfer all files to .com domain'

When I did it, I didnt transfer the files anywhere, the .com domain was just added to my cPanel and made the primary domain.. so the files never 'moved' as such just domain name changed.

Anyway Ive set up re-direct and used Googel notification of new address tool, so think Im all sorted.

Was a bit concerned the .co.uk domain still apears in google search, (and higher than .com domain) but think this will just take time to be resolved..