What do we have to do to change our domain name?

[electronicthroat]

We are currently in the process of changing our company name. So that means our domain name will have to change.

After we buy the new domain name, how do we go about changing our current domain name to the new one through Host Gator? Do we have to cancel our current account and create a whole new account? Or can just the domain name be changed?

[riostyles]

I suggest you to negciate this wiyh HG directly; They will move all the stuff "Unseen" probaly on the same server or why not do your space upgrade at the mean time.
If you have dynamic, htaccess filrs, and/or restricted login content etc., prepare the move, changing the access and DB accesses in a dev site
This way will cost you much less as doing it yoursel and is more secure and reliable.
A good thing can also to do the move a Friday night for to have Sat. and Sunday for tests and debugging.

[eLIANT]

Do a COPY of your account, not a MOVE. Then you can mod your old index.htm to display a message announcing the new company name, the new web site address, and do a time-delay redirect.

Leave that up for a couple of months, THEN delete your old account.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by electronicthroat

After we buy the new domain name, how do we go about changing our current domain name to the new one through Host Gator? Do we have to cancel our current account and create a whole new account? Or can just the domain name be changed?

Just the domain name can be changed.
Contact HG support and ask them to do it, they will tell you how to proceed. I believe there's a (quite small) fee you have to pay.

EDIT:
found the link: http://hostgator.com/changedomain.php

[PsiPro]

Or you can just add it as a parked / addon domain to your current account and it will work immediatly.

The only reason to have HG change your primary domain name is for superficial reasons, it is not nessary.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by PsiPro

The only reason to have HG change your primary domain name is for superficial reasons, it is not nessary.

Provided you intend to keep the old domain registered...

[electronicthroat]

Originally Posted by PsiPro

Or you can just add it as a parked / addon domain to your current account and it will work immediatly.

The only reason to have HG change your primary domain name is for superficial reasons, it is not nessary.

If we wanted to do this, how would we go about doing it? Where in control panel is this done? I'm very new to using cPanel.

[Serra]

The icon "Parked Domains"