Connecting new pages to my old site hosted elsewhere

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  hancillhols · Member · Mar 22, 2024 at 2:16 pm

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  I have transferred my domain hancill.com to WordPress while the hosting stays with the UK company NetNerd because there are nearly two years to run on the contract.

  I can’t automatically convert my old pages to WordPress as they were created years ago and the framework is not supported. But they still display OK and I am happy to link to them from a new WordPress front end which I have started building.

  Because everything now gets diverted to WordPress the old URLs don’t work and I can’t figure out how to link to the old pages at NetNerd with a more specific URL.

  I asked this question in a tech support email yesterday. The answer bot gave a reply that had grasped the subject but did not give me the necessary detail, so I asked for more help and am still waiting for a human response.

  I first posed the same question to NetNerd tech support (thinking that it was more something they could tell me). They have always replied promptly and helpfully but I was told: “We’re now out of the loop with certificates, redirects, and the entire administration of the hancill.com site. You’ll need to liaise with the wordpress.com people about the queries you’ve raised.’

  While I wait impatiently for any response from WordPress does anyone here know the magic formula to link back to my old pages? I image it involves an IP address and my NetNerd username and I can see all that in the NetNerd control panel, but all of the permutations I’ve tried just lead to an error page.

  By the way, I am a real novice and only dip my toes into this world once in a blue moon!

  WP.com: Yes
  Jetpack: No
  Correct account: Yes

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

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  hancillhols · Member · Mar 22, 2024 at 4:17 pm

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  Update: still no answer from a WordPress human (I gather from Trustpilot that this is normal behaviour) but the helpful people at NetNerd, who replied within an hour, have moved my old site to a subdomain with a new URL I can link to. Works perfectly.

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  darusja · Staff · Apr 11, 2024 at 7:36 am

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  Hi there!

  Thank you for your patience! You will get the answer much quicker if you use the option designed for users on your plan – email https://wordpress.com/support/help-support-options/#email-support

  I have transferred my domain hancill.com to WordPress while the hosting stays with the UK company NetNerd because there are nearly two years to run on the contract.

  Let me clarify something, your domain is only connected here (using DNS records), not transferred. Your DNS is still managed at the other registrar. At the moment WordPress.com is just unnecessary point in the connection path between the domain registrar and the hosting.

  To transfer the domain to WordPress.com please follow this guide https://wordpress.com/support/move-domain/incoming-domain-transfer/ and then you will want to follow the below.

  does anyone here know the magic formula to link back to my old pages?

  To do that you will want to change the name servers here at WordPress.com to the ones from your hosting provider. Here is a how to do that https://wordpress.com/support/domains/change-name-servers/#changing-name-servers-to-point-away-from-word-press-com

  Alternatively, you can ask the hosting provider for the DNS records: A and CNAME and add them here, guide https://wordpress.com/support/domains/custom-dns/#add-a-new-dns-record

  Additionally, you have the Starter plan with us but since you don’t host the site here this is not needed. I suspect it was added accidentally because you wanted to set up the domain connection however, you want the transfer not the connection. In that case I would suggest canceling both the plan and the connection, we will refund it. It is out of the refund window but I will make an exception as it must have been a mistake.

  Let me know please!

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  hancillhols · Member · Apr 25, 2024 at 8:21 am

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  Hello Darusja and thank you for the reply. I do not seem to have received any email notification of this reply so I have only just seen it two weeks later.

  Netnerd gave me a solution to my problem by linking my original pages to a subdomain called original.hancill.com and installing a redirect for the internal links. I am now linking them to the WordPress front end using that method.

  Thank you for the offer of a refund. But I thought it was necessary to have a paid plan so I could use a WordPress theme at the address hancill.com as opposed to hancill.wordpress.com. Is that not the case – could I still use the current Tú theme at hancill.com without paying for the Starter plan?

  Thanks for your help.