Going Live
Once you have set up your site and are ready to go live on your domain name you will want to do the following. Point the domain name following the instructions here: how to set your DNS. If you are not ready to go live on your domain name you can fake out the DNS on your local machine by following these instructions: Using “hosts” file to fake-out local DNS. You are then ready to proceed with the following steps:
Step 1
Log into your /wp-admin/ and go to settings > general. You are going to enter your domain name exactly as you would like it to appear into the following fields:
WordPress Address (URL)
Site Address (URL)
See screenshot below for reference:
Additional Information
If you have a MultiSite network install then you would need to follow the instructions in the following article for updating your top level domain name:
how to change a multi site primary domain
Step 2
Make sure that your domain is setup within the WP Engine Customer Portal. Once you log in there, click on manage WordPress and then click on Domains. See screenshot below for reference:
If the domain is not there, enter it into the field provided and click ADD NEW DOMAIN.
Note: You will want to specify whether your primary domain name is the www version or the non-www version (there is a difference). Then you can redirect the non-www (or www) version of your domain to the primary version of your domain using this tool. You will also want to redirect account_name.wpengine.com to your sites primary domain in order to prevent search engines from indexing that URL. See image below for reference:
Another Note: You may notice when you are trying to add a domain that you get a red error message text saying, “must me unique.” No need to fear, that just means that domain is already somewhere else on this page. Just find where the name exists and delete it. You can then proceed with adding it.
Caveat
If you point all domains to the primary but the home and site URL are still defined as account_name.wpengine.com then you will need to access the database: Accessing your database
Click on your production database on the left, then click on wp_options and update the option value for line 1 and line 37. Make sure to put the primary domain (http://yourdomain.com) in place of the http://account_name.wpengine.com value. If you run into any trouble or find yourself locked out, please submit a ticket in our ticket system.
