Can I buy a domain name from Godaddy and transfer it to free wordpress.com?

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  islandsidechronicles · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 1:36 am

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  I want to have a website without the .wordpress.com addition. Can I buy a domain at godaddy (cheap) and then have my free wordpress blog show up without the .wordpress.com?

  Also how would that be different from domain mapping here at wordpress? And what are the seo/google ranking implications? (In case i want to move to self hosted later – when I know more about what I’m doing?

  Thanks bunches!

  Oh ya…the site is http://www.islandsidechronicles.wordpress.com

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

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  raincoaster · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 1:41 am

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  Yes, you can do that, but it’s cheaper to buy it from wordpress.com where it is only $5. Then you pay $13 to map the domain to your blog here and away you go.

  In SEO terms having a custom domain is slightly less advantageous than a subdomain of WordPress.com, but it is so slight an effect and the custom domain is so worthwhile for other reasons (including if you have to move the blog) that we generally advise buying it anyway.

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  islandsidechronicles · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 1:54 am

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  Wow! That was a quick response. Thank you.

  If I go that route, then will all my old posts, backlinks, permalinks etc still function?

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  raincoaster · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 1:59 am

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  Yes. Your images and uploaded media will still have a Whatever.wordpress.com URL, but that doesn’t show up unless someone looks at the code or selects just that one element of the page. Your old inbound links and internal links will all still work.

  Domains

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  islandsidechronicles · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 2:01 am

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  Thanks raincoaster! You’re a superstar!

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  raincoaster · Member · Sep 17, 2012 at 2:06 am

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  I like to think so.

  You’re welcome.