Domain Mapping and Email
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I have a fairly popular blog that WordPress has been hosting for several years. I’m planning to purchase a custom domain name for my site, to get rid of the .wordpress suffix. But I also want to get email at that same domain name. So I have two questions:
1. If I change the domain name via the Custom Domain Name upgrade here on wordpress.com, what will happen with search engines? I currently list pretty high up on certain searches. Will I be hurting myself by switching? And will people who enter the old url (the .wordpress url) get redirected to the new domain?
2. Can I get email-only hosting using the same domain name? I assume I can’t get it from WordPress, but can I get it from another provider using the same domain? That is — blog on wordpress, email somewhere else with same domain. I assume that other people are doing the same thing. Is there a preferred way to do this or a preferred provider?
Thanks in advance to anybody who has any suggestions or ideas about this.
Steve
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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1) you start all over again from zero. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but since you have a mass of regular readers it won’t hurt you as much as it might. People will still find you. Eventually smarter search engines like Bing and Google figure out that it’s just a new domain on a preexisting blog and they may restore your standing, but usually by that time you’ve got a respectable new ranking for the new URL anyway.
2) not email hosting, but there’s a workaround using Gmail and the instructions are here:http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/custom-dns/
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Wow, that google apps thing is not for the faint of heart. I think I’ll probably pay for email-only hosting. It seems simpler. And I’d get tech support to help set it up.
Regarding a domain name change on wordpress.com — don’t visitors who enter the old url get redirected to the new one? Without that, I can’t imagine doing it. If somebody does a google search and gets the old domain, the one that ends in wordpress.com, and they click that link, they’ll still get to my blog, right?
I think I understand your point, though. That in terms of search ranking, it’s the old url that’s currently got the ranking. The new one is just the new one and they don’t get merged.
Is that correct?
Thanks for your very thoughtful help!
Steve
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Yes, people who go to your old URL will be redirected to the new one if you’ve set your new one as Primary. If you’ve got your old one set as Primary, then the people who go to whatever.com will be redirected to whatever.wordpress.com. You can mange this under Domain Management.
And yes, your understanding of the way google works with your two URLs is correct. They’re independent, although Google does eventually figure out they go to the same blog.
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Thanks raincoaster, that’s great. Very helpful.
So, this morning I purchased a custom domain name from wordpress. Easy to do. But there’s a glitch.
First I added a new post. Then, about an hour later, I added the custom domain. And made it primary. Now when I go to the site, I get redirected to the new custom domain, but I don’t see today’s post. I guess I’m seeing a cached version of the site from yesterday, but I cleared the browser’s cache and nothing changed.
Do you have any idea what’s going on, or what I can do about it? Today’s post has some time value and needs to get out there.
Thanks,
Steve -
Okay, cancel that. It’s working now. Just took a few minutes.
But now I’ve got a new glitch. I go to the site. I log in. And I’m logged in under the secondary url (mysite.wordpress.com/wp-admin/). If I click the site name at the top of the dashboard, I go to the new primary name and it looks like I’m logged out — no menu bar. I used to see the menu bar over the site. Now that no longer works. Seems strange and awkward.
Steve
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