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How to recover website after domain expired

Terrablue
TL;DR I have bought a website HTML/CSS/JS -> old domain expired -> bought a new domain -> what should I do inside my cPanel to recover the website -> change URLs inside source code/Database (where/how?) or just add domain to my hosting account First thing first, as I have wrote in my intro post my background is not in webdev area and I had never build a website using html/css/js or use cPanel for more than adding domains, setting up email account or adding and deleting WordPress site. For my day-to-day activities I am using WP and more or less playing around with python, r, excel and SPSS. This a weird combo but good enough for me to present my data analysis results and put them online. Few days ago I bought a website which is pure html/css/js play with relatively large database of different geolocation assets, using googlemaps API, pdf report generator, filters, etc... it is a nice asset for my data analysis business... The problem is that the previous owner didn't renew the domain so I was left with the website files and database. Since I cannot renew the old domain (someone snapped the domain and don't want to sell bellow $10k) I've decided to buy a new domain and want put this website online again. Unfortunately, I don't know how can I recover this website (take in consideration that source code, and database stayed intact) Is creating new folder with a new domain name and put public_html file inside enough ? Do I need to change links inside website's source code from olddomain.com to newdomain.com, which files should I check for URLs and perform URL changes... IDK... right now after I changed name servers I see cgi-bin... Can someone give me a hint or two on how can I solve this problem with html/css/js website. Thanks a lot ! Carol

Comments

4 comments

Date Votes
  • ffeingol
    If the web site is "pure html/css/js" then more than likely you don't need t do anything with the web site. Either get your web host to rename the domain in WHM or simply log into cPanel and alias your new domain to the existing site.
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  • cPRex Jurassic Moderator
    Sorry to hear about that situation. It could be as easy as @ffeingol said, where you just need to change the domain at the WHM level, which is something your host can do for you. If your website uses relative links, that's all you need to do. If your website has non-relative links that use the full path of the domain, those would need to be manually edited in the site's code and updated, as there isn't an automated way to do that. I would start with your hosting provider for sure to see what they have to say as they can easily change the domain name on your account. That will need to happen no matter what, so I'd start with that and see if that gets things into a working state. If not, you'll likely need to work with a professional admin/site designer to get things redone with the new domain.
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  • Terrablue
    Big thank you to ffeingol & cPRex I succesfully managed to recover my site following your advice! I hope this post will be useful for someone having similar problem(s).
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  • cPRex Jurassic Moderator
    I'm glad to hear things are working well now!!!
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