How do I set up wordpress.com to host my domain?

  • Unknown's avatar
    cliffandcheri · Member ·

    My website on wordpress.com is CliffandCheri.com. Last night, I purchased the domain mapping for $13. This domain that I own is hosted at 1and1.com. I understand that wordpress.com offers free domain hosting. How do I cancel the hosting at 1and1.com and transfer it to wordpress.com? I’m also trying to validate my domain under the support tab and it still isn’t able to do it. Can you please help?

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

  • kraftbj · Staff ·

    Howdy,

    WordPress.com can’t accept transfers of existing domains, so unfortunately, you’ll have to maintain your domain at 1and1.com (or transfer it to a different registrar, like namecheap.com or something along those lines).

    You do not need to keep the hosting at 1and1.com, but only the domain itself. The typical cost is between $10-$20/year for a .com domain name.

    Which support tab are you trying to validate your domain at? I’m not quite clear what you’re referencing.

    Thanks!

  • Unknown's avatar
    cliffandcheri · Member ·

    Oh ok…I was confused. I thought that where you maintain your domain and “hosting” was the same thing. So I’ll just keep the domain at 1and1.com, but can I switch the hosting to WordPress.com?

    Here’s the support tab link i’m talking about: http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-helper/

    And here’s the message I keep getting:
    “Hold Your Horses!
    It can take as long as 72 hours for DNS changes to become widely available. If you’re still not seeing your site loading at cliffandcheri.com, please wait a few more hours, clear your browser cache, and try again.”

    Thanks so much!

  • kraftbj · Staff ·

    Hi,

    Many places do combine the hosting and the domain registration, but it isn’t required. When you try to view your site, what are you seeing?

    That message will show for the first 72 hours. Basically, the way domain names work is the nameservers (what you changed to ns1.wordpress.com, etc) and the DNS information (what tells computers where to actually go to find your site when you type in your domain) is cached on servers throughout the world.

    Typically, everyone respects a setting to allow those records to remain saved only a certain amount of time (typically, anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours); however, in some cases, a system somewhere won’t respect the setting and, by spec, cached records should never be kept longer than 72 hours.

    If it’s been under 72 hours and your site isn’t appearing, then it is possible there is a record stuck in the cache longer than expected. For your site, though, I can load it without a problem and I’ve verified everything is set right.

    Hope you’re having a great weekend!

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