Many blog owners are scared and hesitated to move their blog to another domain because they fear to lose their visitors, downtime and other complications. I will show you now how to get rid off this fear and how to avoid problems while you moving.

First of all, make a backup of all your data in your database and your customized themes and other files.

1. On your new domain, create an index.php, with the function header() , to let the search engine know, that something is coming soon, visit us again.

   <?
   header("HTTP/1.0 503 Service Unavailable");
   header("Retry-After: 3600");
   ?>
   

   Alternatively you can use the Plugin Wartungsmodus or Maintenance Mode.
   From now on you can work, without to be worried about search engines, on your website.

2. After that, you import your data into the new database and upload all files.
3. Adjust the wp-config.php accordingly. Open the file in your editor and add following data:

   define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://www.example.com');
   define('WP_HOME', 'http://www.example.com/blog');
   

   Tip:

   I suggest to this in every other blog too. You save a request to the database and it improves the performance of your installation. Please check the correct definition, even a wrong / can deny access to your blog for visitors.
   After you add these definitions, don't forget to check off both fields in your settings area. See screenshot: