From time to time customers will have a domain name hosted with us and they wish to change it... they may have mydomain.com and wish to change to mydomain.net, or perhaps it was a company name and the company name changed.    Or perhaps they were hosting 1 website with us, and they are done with that, and want to host a completely different website.  If you want to add a second name for the same domain, please check our article on "domain aliases".  But if you want to actually remove the first domain name, and replace it with another, read on...

Renaming a domain under your hosting plan requires deletion of the original domain and creation of a new domain in that hosting space.  The deletion of the original domain means that all files, content, data, databases, mail users, and email will be permanently deleted.  If you wish to have any of the same content on the new domain, you should ensure you have a backup/local copy of it, and you will need to republish those files, recreate and repopulate those databases once the new domain has been created.  Once you're ready for this, submit a support request indicating you wish to change your hosting from domainA.com to domainB.com.  Be sure to note that you understand and approve the deletion of the original domain.  You can copy/paste the following text in your request if you wish:

• I am requesting a domain rename.  Please delete my domain (insert original domain here) and replace it with (insert new domain name here).  I understand that this process requires deletion of the original domain, including permanent deletion of all files, content, data, databases, mail users, and email, and that I am responsible for ensuring I have any necessary backups I need in order to republish any content, files, database data, etc.  I approve 3Essentials to proceed with the domain rename as I've outlined here.

Please note the following IMPORTANT ITEMS related to making this request:

• Impact to SSL certificate: If you have an SSL certificate for your domain, say www.mydomain.com, and you want to rename your domain to www.mydomain.net, your SSL certificate will need to be replaced with a new one, issued for the new name.  Most SSL vendors (including 3Essentials' partner RapidSSL) do not issue full or partial refunds on a SSL certificate if you change the name before the cert expiry.  Instead, you'll need to purchase a completely new certificate at regular price.
• Make sure that you have your new domain name registered, and configured to use our nameservers (ns1.3essentials.com and ns2.3essentials.com) so that when we add the hosting for the new domain name, it will be active as quickly as possible.