Need Help With Domain Alias

[acharris]

Hi, I need some help? I am looking to move from TSOHost to Krystal and would like to sort out an niggling issue first. I originally setup my website with and I wanted to change my domain name to something else. At the time Vidahost set it up on an Alias, so that both domains are active.

Now I want to move it to my gaming one and take off my original one. I look in WP settings and notice that Site URL and Site name is set to my gaming one and also the .htaccess and wp-config file shows the correct names, esp if I add two lines with the addresses to the wp-config file. Yet when I remove the alias then the gaming one stops working until I put the alias back and then it works again.

Anyone help me with what I am missing as I followed a few guides online and I still seem to have the issue of it sticking to collector-corners as the main name no matter what I do. Thanks in advance for any help. Appreciated.

Anthony

 

[ChroniC]

I am a little confused by your explanation, so i will try to get some clarity first.
You had an original URL and then you wanted another? So you had them set up another URL (alias) and forward it to the original URL, right?

Now you would like to remove the original URL and have the alias as your main domain name? So you've changed all the wordpress settings and removed the alias in the hope that the URL will change?

If i have described it correctly, that's not how domains work, if thats correct let me know and i'll try and explain how to change it.

 

[acharris]

Hi thanks for the reply and sorry for the confusion. Yes you are correct that is what I am trying to do. Following guides online make it sound so simple, but obviously it is not. If you can point me in the direction I would be grateful. Thanks again

 

[ChroniC]

I think the problem your having is that your confusing the WordPress settings with a domain and an understanding of a DNS.
The alias / url which you want it to be, is am address that points to a server. The IP of the server is contained in the settings for the domain/url known as a domain name server (DNS). Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs.

When someone types the domain/url it asks what server it exists on and then matches it to your WordPress settings, and if it all hunkydory it replies with information....

So. What you need to do is learn the following.

Change the site url in WordPress (I've never used that before I directly change mine in my database via phpmyadmin. However that might do it for you and also in wp-config.php

This seems a decent guide on how to do that.
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/214580498-How-do-I-change-the-WordPress-Site-URL-

Often after this I would be worried that some of the links on the site would have non relative links and wouldn't work.. A none relative link is something like www.website.com/page where a relative link is /page.

You can use a plugin called better search replace to replace all the www.website.com with www.website-new.com (as an example of your domains)
https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/search-and-replace-plugin-for-wordpress-database/

After that you should be done with all the WordPress stuff.
Here's the bit I can't tell without seeing what your doing or have. You have maybe Plesk or Cpanel on your hosting platform??

If it's Cpanel you should have a DNS sections with Domains and Aliases. This feature of cPanel allows your website to load from another domain. When a user enters the Alias Domain or Parked Domain to access the website, the cPanel automatically redirects them to your main domain and load the main website.

If you remove the alias you need to add it into the domain section instead.. I don't know the whole process here off the top of my head. I'm sure TSOhost have a chat to get the tech team to do this for you if need be or it might have a wizard to follow that sets it up automatically..

Once you have the domain there you can remove the other domain and all things should match up..

TLDR : your alias is just a redirect... When you remove it, it doesn't work. It needs to be added to the domain section in Cpanel and the other domain removed.

 

[acharris]

Thanks for that detailed reply! That is a great explanation. I can work with that and yes it is Cpanel, so I now have something tow work with. Thanks again.

 

[ChroniC]

If you can't get it to work then i don't mind helping more, but it might require Zoom or passwords, as its not easy to explain via text sometimes.