Hey everybody. This weekend I have made several changes which I hope will improve the website.
I have moved my site from a Chinese server over to an American server at JustHost.com. I hope this will mean a faster site for you. It’s something, I had to do because of my planned move back to New Zealand next year.
Please give me some feedback whether the speed of the site is faster or slower than before.
I changed the domain name from www.LifestyleDesign4u.com to www.LifestyleDesignForYou.com. I did this for two reasons.
Two reasons for the change.
Firstly, I was never that comfortable having a numeral in the domain name. It just looked tacky and unprofessional.
Secondly, I found that as I left comments on other blogs, my comments would sometimes get trapped in spam filters. Another blogger told me that “4u” is often used by spammers and spam websites. Some spam filters don’t let it through. “Cash 4U”, “Rolex watches 4U”, “Viagra 4U”, “A bigger ding-dong 4U” are disproportionately used by spammers.
The old domain name redirects to www.LifestyleDesignForYou.com.
If I’ve written a guest post for you blog, would you please change that for me as I will not buy the old domain name when it expires. A broken link does neither your site or my site any good.
The mammoth task I had was to go through every post manually and change every single link to the new domain name. It was a marathon of copying and pasting. My wrist hasn’t been this sore since I first hit puberty.
I Need The Following Help.
1. Please Update Your RSS feed to make sure you’re following the new domain www.LifestyleDesignForYou.com.
2. Please copy and paste this tweet to your followers:
“LifestyleDesign4U.com has a new domain. It is http://LifestyleDesignForYou.com (via @Gordie_Rogers)”
3. Please let me know if you come across any broken links or links still linking through the old domain. It’s possible I missed some.
Thank you.
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G'day! I'm Gordie, founder and editor-in-chief of Lifestyle Design For You. I want to welcome you to the center of the universe when it comes to lifestyle design and personal development blogs. We're a team of ten writers providing you with articles to help nourish your mind and improve your life. Lifestyle design is about designing your life so you can do what you want when you want. 
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Haven’t noticed any change. But then speeds in South Africa are so slow, any slight change won’t be noticed.
BTW, I am worried about loss of links from your old domain. Would it not have been wise to just move the domain and keep the same name.
If not, have you instituted a 301 redirect. Ask your old host if they can do this for you. This way you will not loose any PageRank or Indexed pages done by the search engines.
Robert Bravery’s last blog ..How to Grow Your Blog’s Readership.
Hey Robert,
Thanks for the advice. Will look into the 301 redirect tomorrow. Still got a few more bugs to sort out.
I’m not sure how you did the moving, but you could’ve kept everything and just copied all the files and database from old domain to the new one, keeping the comments and all, and then automatically edit/replace the old domain to new one inside the database and files. As you’ve done the hard work already, I post this here for everyone else to make this kind of process a lot easier: Search and Replace -plugin for WordPress.
As you talked about redirecting from old domain to the new one, do it with 301 redirect, just like Robert mentioned. As it looks like you’ve kept your permalinks the same, each post will redirect to the same post here, keeping the backlinks for that post even with redirect.
This way it doesn’t matter if people won’t “fix” their links pointing here, the links pointing to “4U” will work just as fine as long as the old domain and redirect stays there. After doing that, don’t go killing the old domain too quickly so you let the search engines pick up that the posts have moved.
I’m not sure how Thesis handles the comments, but could you try switching to another theme (default) while you do the comment import (is that how you’re moving them?) and then switch back to Thesis. And perhaps try this on locally installed WordPress first.
Antti Kokkonen’s last blog ..3 Ways to Earn Money Through Internet
Seem to have got most of the comments moved across. A couple of bugs, but we know what to do now. Thanks for the great advice.
Good move! It’ll be a pain in the ass to being with but worth it in the end. Definitely a change for the better. Glad you’re forging ahead with your plans:)
Yeah, a lot of work in the beginning, but it needed to be done. Getting it out of the way while the site is still young feels the right thing to do.
Hey Gordie!
Smart move on the domain change, its much better.
I dont know if you have done this, but keep your old domain and just do a redirect to your new domain on it. This will make sure that anyone who types in your old domain will get to your current blog.
Its easy but if you need help doing it just mail me!
Have a great weekend!
Cheers
Diggy – Upgradereality.com´s last blog ..Get Your Hands Dirty
Thanks for the offer of help, Diggy. Will let you know how things go.
I guess it’s too late Gordie but to change links for anyone else who is reading you could use the Buoyant Page Rank Plugin. A specific word or phrase can then link directly to another place. See how it works on my site by clicking on the name above. I have done it with the term “audiobooks”. You can see it work in the second, third and fourth posts on the page. How you do it is specify a link for a target word. In your case you could have used lifestyledesign4u to link dierectly to the new site in all cases it appeared.
Sorry this is now too late.
Graham Hunt´s last blog ..Interview With David Leigh
Thanks for that Graham. The bugs are being worked out now. There was a little bit of corruption that occurred as we moved it from a crappy Chinese server over to a higher grade American one. Lesson learned: Never put your site on a Chinese server!
Looking good, Gordie! I think you were smart to upgrade to the full name on the domain.
Erica Mueller´s last blog ..Over the River and Through the Woods…
Thanks, Erica. It seems more professional looking now.
Hi Gordie,
Just a small detail, according to Google documentation, it can take up to a couple months for them to properly take a 301 redirect into account. I don’t know when your previous domain expires, but it might be something to take into account when making a final decision on whether to renew that last domain or not.
For the 301 redirect, all you need is this line of code in the .htaccess file (located at the root of your previous domain):
redirect 301 / http://www.lifestyledesignforyou.com
Charles´s last blog ..Online Affiliate Marketing Plan
Thanks for this Chris.
After analysing my traffic from Google, I’ve found that it is very, very little and almost 100% bounce rate, even after all the SEO work I’ve done.
Already have the redirect in place, but didn’t go with a 301. I’m going to lose some page ranking for a few months, but I know it’ll come back up.
Cheers.
“4U” in a domain name is indeed kinda tacky. Good to know that you got a new domain.
Kelvin Servigon´s last blog ..Best FishVille Cheats and Tricks
Cheers, Kelvin. It was tacky.
Good Move Gordie,
Are you going to share your migration steps and the challenges faced?
Johnluffa´s last blog ..4 Simple Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog
Hey John,
I could actually write a guest post for you about it. I did have some trials and it has cost me my RSS feed. That crashed and burned. Lol!
I’m sorry that happened to you, Gordie. I wish I was able to warn you beforehand because I suffered the same fate when I changed my URL.
Tim — Inspiration Pro´s last blog ..How to Convert Fear Into a Source of Excitement
Yeah, I still think it was worth it. I’m lucky that I didn’t have a huge RSS feed. It’s growing again I think within a month or so I should have got back up to the original level.
I’ve only just seen this reply…didn’t check the follow-up comments option.
I am actually considering changing my web host.
I would be happy if you could share your thoughts on this – That is if you can still remember them
Changing host should be okay if you don’t change your URL. I can’t see your RSS feed been affected.
What an excellent blog, I have recently emigrated to New Zeland from the UK and it is the best decision I have ever made. The most common problem I have found with people wanting to emigrate is the lack of research they are prepared to do. Research is everything as the glossy brochures and websites only tell you half of the story, so read, read and then read some more, before making your decision. It has to be right first time as this is probably one of the most important decisions people will make in their lifetime. Hope your move back here goes well
Snapa´s last blog ..Emigrate to New Zealand