Domain questions – switching from GoDaddy to WordPress

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  steptomygirl · Member · Oct 11, 2015 at 9:04 am

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  Hi there,

  I have been playing around with WordPress and decided that I’m a big fan! However, I have my domain name on GoDaddy, available at http://www.jackstracks.co.uk. On WordPress, I have http://www.jackmatthewgibbs.wordpress.com. I would therefore like to replace jackmatthewgibbs.wordpress.com with http://www.jackstracks.co.uk.

  I gather that there is a way to ‘map’ one domain to my WordPress site, but does that also mean that WordPress would now ‘host’ my site, or GoDaddy continues to do so? Equally, I would be happy to end any asscociation with GoDaddy, cancel the domain, and simply buy it back on WordPress, however I’m unsure how exactly to do this.

  Many thanks for your help!

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

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  justjennifer · Member · Oct 11, 2015 at 6:08 pm

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  Since WordPress.com does not accept incoming domain transfers, you will need to keep your domain name with your current registrar and renew it through them.

  In order to use your custom domain with your WPcom website, you are correct that you will need to buy the domain mapping upgrade. This is an upgrade that needs to be renewed annually and separately from your domain name. Here’s more about that: https://en.support.wordpress.com/map-existing-domain/

  In the above case, WordPress.com will be your webhost and you will need to abide by the Terms of Service here, which you already agreed to when you signed up for the site.

  For clarity, there are two different flavors of WordPress: the standalone WordPress software which you use on 3rd party hosting (including GoDaddy) or WordPress.com, where we are. Here’s more about that: https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  Let us know if you need any more info or help on any of that.

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  steptomygirl · Member · Oct 11, 2015 at 9:20 pm

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  Thankyou, that’s brilliant advice. So I can’t just create any old http://www.example.com site using WordPress – I have to use a domain website? Otherwise I’ll get going on the domain mapping :)

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  timethief · Member · Oct 11, 2015 at 9:59 pm

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  You registered http://www.jackmatthewgibbs.wordpress.com/

  In order to map to a domain like http://www.jackstracks.co.uk/ one must have an underlying .wordpress.com sub-domain blog to map from like http://www.jackmatthewgibbs.wordpress.com/
  Note that it does not matter what that underlying .wordpress.com URL is. It does not have to match the domain URL.