By DrCarShopper
I am using Wordpress.org and my IP address kept appearing in my URL bar. I googled how to change it to my actual website name (www.drcarshopper.com) and I made that change in my admin dashboard. After I did that, when I go to visit the site it says this site cannot be reached. I sent DigitalOcean and email and they told me something about Apache, but I have no idea what that is.
Note: Prior to changing my URL from IP address to my website name, I could type in my actual website name in my URL and it would go to my website, but change my name from the actual name to my IP address.
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
Hello friend!
Actually this shouldn’t relate to the Apache configuration. Instead, it seems that there is no DNS record for www.drcarshopper.com. There is an entry for drcarshopper.com, just not for www. What you might do is add a CNAME to your DNS record that points “www” to “drcarshopper.com” in the zone. Here is some documentation on how to use our DNS interface:
https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/networking/dns/how-to/manage-records/
Kind Regards, Jarland
Hello there,
If you’ve already updated the Home and Site URLs from the WordPress admin panel then you can take the next step and update all the references for the IP address in your database as well.
**Note:**Please before you proceed take a snapshot of the droplet and also create a backup of the site (both files and database). This will ensure that if something goes wrong you can easily restore your site or droplet if needed
There are few ways to update the references in your database and it’s totally up to you which one you’ll choose. You can either change them manually if they’re not many or use an automation tool like a plugin or an external app.
One of the external apps that I’ve used and I know for sure that it’s working okay is: https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-
You need to upload the script in your public_html folder and access in your browser, then you’ll need to fill in your database details and enter the old name (IP address) and the domain name you want to use. Then you can first use the dry-run option and if there are references that need to be updated you can then run the script and update them.
Also, an alternative way is to use a plugin called “Duplicator” it will update all of the paths and references from the dev domain to the main domain. This is why we usually recommend using a plugin called: Duplicator. The plugin will generate a backup for your website’s files and database. Then when you import the files to the new domain, all of the references for the old domain name will be updated properly with the correct ones.
Another option is to use the All-in-One WP Migration plugin. The plugin will do the replacement for you during import. You do not need to use any additional database search and replace
Once this is done you can check the site for any errors as there might be some hardcoded references for the IP address in the files like paths to directories, files and etc.
Hope this helps!
Become a contributor for community
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.
DigitalOcean Documentation
Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.
Resources for startups and AI-native businesses
The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.
The developer cloud
Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.
Get started for free
Sign up and get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.*
*This promotional offer applies to new accounts only.