Blog Web Address?

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  mgrace58 · Member · Feb 16, 2015 at 2:20 am

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  So, I never really paid much attention to my blog address and I want to change it. Will that mess up all my blog traffic? How can I fix it or should I not even bother. It’s been bugging me for sometime and I didn’t realize I could actually change the address until now. Will all those that subscribe to my blog lose access to it? I guess what I’m wondering is, if I do change my blog’s web address will I basically be starting from scratch?

  Thank you,

  Michelle

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  kokkieh · Staff · Feb 16, 2015 at 11:48 am

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  Hi there.

  If you haven’t yet registered the new address you want, you can change the existing one and your followers, theme, everything will go with you. Only people following you via other RSS readers will not make the change, so it is a good idea to post a warning of the pending address change before you do it and then publish a post on the old address afterwards with a link to the new address and leave that up for a couple of weeks.

  You can also buy a custom domain. In this case nothing will change, as the custom URL is simply lain over your free URL, so nothing actually moves. All that changes is what’s in the address bar if people view your blog. Instructions for buying a custom domain is here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/register-domain/

  In both cases you will experience a dip in traffic coming from search engines as the search engines will need to re-index your content at the new URL, but after six weeks or so that should normalise again.

  Changing free address

  Instructions to change your free blog URL are found in this support doc: http://en.support.wordpress.com/changing-blog-address/

  Please make sure you read the support doc and all instructions and warnings carefully as this process cannot be reversed.

  When prompted whether you’d like to keep the old URL or delete it, consider keeping it as deleted URLs can never be recovered: http://en.support.wordpress.com/recycling-blog-names/

  Rather, set the old address to private, and then you can either use it as a test blog to try out new themes and widgets, etc., or you can use it as a backup to your regular blog by periodically importing content to it. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

  As part of the process you’ll also have the option to change your username to match the new address. Note that if you do this your current username will cease to exist and you won’t later be able to go back to it. If you prefer, you can also keep your username what it is and simply change your display name (what will appear next to comments – on the forum it will still be the actual username that appears). Instructions to do that can be found here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/change-your-username/

  To automatically redirect visitors from the old address to the new one you’ll need to buy the Site Redirect upgrade: http://en.support.wordpress.com/site-redirect/ You don’t have to buy this, but if you don’t people who had your old address bookmarked won’t be able to find it, and any links to your old address on other sites will no longer work, so if your blog has been around for a while it is recommended.