Change Your Store's Domain

A new brand name, a shorter address or a .com instead of a .in: CHANGE DOMAIN moves your store from one domain of yours to another. Your orders, customers, products and invoices stay as they are; links to the old domain change to the new one, and the old domain redirects to it until you let it go. It is for moving between two domains of your own: a store still on its free Mercayo address simply connects a domain.

Before You Start

• Your current domain is connected on Settings › Domains, and your plan includes an own domain. The new domain is connected even when your plan's count is full, because the old one is leaving.
• You can sign in to the new domain's DNS settings, or connect it to Cloudflare from the Domains screen.
• Pick a quiet hour: the switch itself takes moments, but you will want to work through the steps outside Mercayo straight after.

Step 1: Connect the New Domain

1. Open Settings › Domains and press CHANGE DOMAIN in the Change Domain card.
2. Under New Domain, type it as you would in a browser (yournewbrand.in) and press CONNECT NEW DOMAIN. Both yournewbrand.in and www.yournewbrand.in are connected.
3. Add the records the page lists where you bought the new domain ("We check every few minutes; CHECK NOW looks at once"). On Cloudflare, connect it on the Domains screen and Mercayo adds them.
4. When the domain has its certificate, the page says "yournewbrand.in is connected and has its certificate. You can preview the change."

Nothing changes for your shoppers until you press SWITCH. CANCEL CHANGE gives up at any point before it: your store stays on the old domain and the new one is disconnected.

Step 2: Read the Preview

What Changes lists every place in your store that names the old domain, found now, by area: Pages and Sections, Blog Posts, Products, Collections and Categories, Menus, Theme, Settings, Store Texts and Translations, URL Redirects, Store Details and Forms, Reviews and Questions, Messages Still to Send, Discounts and Marketing, Tracking Links and Your Notes. Each line shows its count and opens to show examples.

Kept as They Are lists what stays exactly as it was, with the reason:

Done by Mercayo lists what follows by itself: the new domain becomes primary; canonical links, the sitemap, product feeds, social sharing and order emails use it; every page is refreshed; your email sender and your admin's own address move.

Step 3: Choose What Happens to the Old Domain

Under The Old Domain:

• Redirect, Then Remove (recommended): every page of the old domain opens the same page on the new one, with the shopper's bag, for Days to Redirect (90 to start with, 1 to 365). Google needs a few weeks to move your pages. Then the old domain is removed.
• Remove Now: the old domain stops opening your store at once, and old links in emails and search results stop working. You type the old domain to confirm, and there is no undo.

Step 4: Switch

Press SWITCH TO NEW DOMAIN and confirm. The page shows "Your Store Is on yournewbrand.in" with the number of links changed, and What Mercayo Did follows each part as it happens: Links Changed, Pages Refreshed, Records of yournewbrand.in, Email Sender, Admin Address and Old Domain Removed (scheduled for its date).

Until the new domain's email records are verified, shopper emails go from Mercayo's address with replies to you, never dropped. Add the email records on the Domains screen (SET UP EMAIL) and your own address takes over by itself.

Step 5: Finish the Steps Outside Mercayo

Outside Mercayo lists each place only you can change. Each card says where to go (with OPEN where there is a link), what to change (old and new, with COPY) and how, with a DONE tick. The ones Mercayo knows you use say You Use This.

1. Google Search Console: add the new domain and use Change of Address from the old one.
2. Razorpay: the website on your account and any webhooks of your own.
3. Google Merchant Center and Meta Business Suite: the website, domain verification and feed addresses.
4. Google Analytics and Ads, Shiprocket and Shipway, WhatsApp (profile website and templates to resubmit).
5. Your Email Provider: create the mailboxes you used on the old domain on the new one.
6. Social profiles, Google Business Profile, and printed material such as cards and packaging.

Step 6: Let the Old Domain Go

When the redirect ends (or when you press REMOVE NOW earlier), the old domain is removed: Mercayo takes away only the records it added in your Cloudflare account (your own MX and DMARC records stay), and lists any records you should delete yourself. Then the Trace Check reads your store's data, its home page, a product page, the sitemap, robots.txt, the feeds, the headers and the shopper emails again, and answers "No trace of youroldbrand.in left", or exactly what remains and where. RUN TRACE CHECK reads everything again whenever you like.

Domain History on Settings › Domains keeps every change of domain: from and to, when, by whom, the links changed and the trace check's verdict.

Undo

While the old domain still redirects, UNDO ("Go Back to youroldbrand.in?") puts it back as your primary domain and restores the links. Anything you edited after the switch is kept as you left it, and the page lists it.

Questions

Will my Google rankings drop?

Every page of the old domain answers with a permanent redirect to the same page on the new one, which is how search engines move a site. Use Search Console's Change of Address and keep the redirect for at least a few weeks.

Do shoppers lose their bag?

No. A shopper who comes in through an old link with a bag or a sign-in is handed over to the new domain with the same bag and a fresh sign-in; a guest's wishlist comes too.

Can I change the domain twice?

Yes, one change at a time: finish, undo or cancel the open one first.

Why can't I see CHANGE DOMAIN?

The card says why: connect your own domain first, your plan does not include an own domain, or Mercayo has turned changing domain off for your store.