I changed the domain name for the Fireplace Aquarium from aqua.egads.uk to niade.com. Dreamhost (my web hosting provider since 2005!) made the WordPress domain changeover process super easy: register and host the new domain name, go into the web hosting control panel, push the appropriate button and in a minute or two everything is switched over.
What to do with the old domain?
It’s poor form to deactivate the old domain and let anything out there with links or bookmarks pointing to the previous site break with 404 errors, so I instructed the old web pages to automatically redirect to the corresponding new versions for three months or so. Naturally, Dreamhost made the redirect process super easy as well. After Google got all the pages switched over in the index, I deactived the old domain.
Why niade.com?
From time to time I have a poke around at what might be available in short and usable domain names, ideally with the .com TLD. The usual result of this exercise is “not much”, but in this instance niade.com was available and since it reminds me of ‘Naiad‘ – freshwater nymph – it has a vague watery/fishy feel to it that seemed appropriate.
Web browser fish icon
The ‘favicon’ is a small 16 x 16 px graphic you can see before the web page title in each tab of your web browser. The niade.com favicon is an homage to the 5-banded barb (Puntius pentazona).