How I Changed My Blog Domain Without Breaking All My Links (with Cloudflare)

Recently, I rebranded my blog from The Geek Writer to The Geek Creator. The name change felt right — but the domain switch was what made me nervous.

I had posts floating around the internet, links in emails, pinned tweets, and backlinks I didn’t want to lose. The idea of someone clicking on an old link and landing on a 404 page made my stomach drop.

However, thanks to Cloudflare, I was able to move my entire domain and keep every link working seamlessly.

Here’s exactly how I did it.

🎯 My Goal

I wanted to redirect all traffic from thegeekwriter.com to thegeekcreator.com, while keeping the full URL path and query string intact.

So this:

https://thegeekwriter.com/subscribe

Would become this:

https://thegeekcreator.com/subscribe

And it worked like a charm.

✅ Step 1: Add Both Domains to Cloudflare

Both my old and new domains were already managed via Cloudflare. If yours aren’t yet:

• Go to cloudflare.com and create a free account.
• Add your old and new domains.
• Update your domain registrar’s nameservers to point to Cloudflare.
• Let Cloudflare scan your DNS records and finish the setup.

Done. Now we can move on to the magic.

☁️ Step 2: Proxy the Old Domain’s Records

In Cloudflare’s DNS tab for your old domain (in my case, thegeekwriter.com):

• Make sure the A or CNAME records for @ (the root domain) and www exist.
• Set them to Proxied (orange cloud icon ☁️).
  This is what enables Cloudflare to actually handle the redirect rule.

Even if the site isn't live anymore, you can point the records to a dummy IP like 192.0.2.1 — just make sure they're proxied.

🔁 Step 3: Create a Redirect Rule (The Easy New Way)

This is the part Cloudflare recently made so much simpler.

Here's what I did:

1. In the Rules tab for thegeekwriter.com, I chose "Redirect to a Different Domain" under the Single Redirect section.
2. On the next screen, I selected:This little formula takes whatever page someone visits on the old site and automatically appends it to the new domain.
   • Condition: “All incoming requests” (since I was moving the whole domain).
   • URL redirect Type: Dynamic
   • Expression: concat("https://thegeekcreator.com", http.request.uri.path)
     
   • Preserve query string: ✔️ (leave this checked)
   • Status code: 301 (Permanent Redirect)
   • Select order: Last (or whatever fits your redirect logic)
3. I clicked Deploy — and that was it. Within seconds, every old link I tested forwarded perfectly to the new domain.

🧪 What I Tested

To be sure everything worked, I visited:

• Old blog post links
• Category archives
• Newsletter-linked pages
• URLs with query strings (like UTM codes)

All of them redirected flawlessly. SEO juice preserved. Reader experience seamless.

💡 And Yes — Cloudflare Is Free

Everything I described above was done on Cloudflare’s free plan. You don’t need to pay a cent to set up domain-level redirects like this.

If you’re not using Cloudflare yet, now’s a great time to start — especially if you're ever planning a rebrand or domain migration.

Final Thoughts

Rebranding your blog or changing your domain doesn’t have to mean broken links or lost traffic. With Cloudflare, the transition was smooth, fast, and actually kind of satisfying.

So if you’re thinking about a change, don’t let fear hold you back. Your past content can come with you — every step of the way.

Let me know if you’re doing a domain switch and need help. I’m happy to share more details or screenshots if you get stuck.

📬 Want more creator tips like this? Subscribe here.