CNAME record for www.mydomain.com, not willing to hand over entire DNS

  • Unknown's avatar
    michaelmcderment · Member ·

    I need to use a CNAME record to map http://www.mydomain.com to a WordPress.com blog. We’re not willing to hand DNS control over to WordPress, but I’m getting an error when I try to add ‘www.mydomain.com’ saying it’s already associated with an account (we’ve already paid to add ‘mydomain.com’

    Can you direct me to how to get this done please?

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

  • eurello · Staff ·

    Hi there – Here at WordPress.com, we always redirect the www version of domains to their root domains. Redirecting the first version of your URL to the second version helps to ensure that search engines index your site properly.

    Because of this, you can’t map a subdomain of www.

    You can either point your michaelmcderment.com to WordPress.com by updating the name servers (note that we can help you set up records on our end so that any email you already host on that domain still functions), or you can map a different subdomain, such as blog.michaelmcderment.com. To do that, you’d need to set up a CNAME for the blog subdomain with your registrar:Map a Subdomain

    Let me know how you’d like to proceed!

  • Unknown's avatar
    michaelmcderment · Member ·

    That’s disappointing. Our ops team isn’t comfortable handing over DNS control in its entirety to WordPress as we want to keep everything but the blog under our control. (The option to set up custom DNS rules for things like MX records isn’t going to work for us.)

    I suspect we’ll want to go ahead with a subdomain like blog.michaelmcderment.com. Given that earlier today we paid for the main domain as a custom domain before discovering that WordPress can’t support a simple CNAME entry for it I’d like to know we can swap the domain we’re paying for to one that works. Could you confirm this is possible please?

  • eurello · Staff ·

    Hi there – Sure thing, I removed the domain mapping and set your free credit back to new. You can map the subdomain in this way:
    Map a Subdomain

    I’m not sure I understand your concerns about DNS control, however – when you update your name servers, your domain remains registered where it is and you still control it there. It’s just pointed to WordPress.com instead of wherever it is currently. There’s a simple DNS editor on your own Dashboard where you can enter things like MX or CNAME records while your name servers are pointed here if you want to, but that’s under your control. If you point your domain elsewhere, all that just stops working.

  • Unknown's avatar
    michaelmcderment · Member ·

    Hi again. Thanks for your quick response.

    I believe the main concern from our ops team is convenience and consistency. Having to remember that one domain is controlled very differently than the others they handle isn’t ideal.

    Have a great evening.

  • eurello · Staff ·

    Hi there – That makes sense. In that case, using the blog or other subdomain would probably be best. Let us know if you need anything else. :)

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