Mapping an existing domain to wordpress blog
-
I want to map an existing domain I own (with a country-specific domain name) to my blog, but I ran into several problems after upgrading my account. The registrar doesn’t allow adding the nameservers NS1.WORDPRESS.COM, NS2.WORDPRESS.COM and NS3.WORDPRESS.COM, but requires IP adresses. I also had a look at the WordPress instructions to edit the DNS after I upgraded my blog, but frankly it doesn’t make any sense to me. Please help!
Best,
Jochen -
Hi there,
What domain name are you trying to add? I can do some research in to why they are not allowing the nameservers.
And what issues are you having with modifying your DNS? I would be happy to help with that! Let me know what entries you are trying to create and I can let you know what format they need to go in as. :)
-
Hi there,
thank you very much for your swift reply! The domain name is jochenhung.de, hosted by Host Europe in Germany.
The issues with modifying the DNS are mostly my lack of programming skills… I have added the following lines already, but I didn’t really know what I was doing:CNAME autodiscover jochenhung.de.
A www 80.237.132.28The latter is the ip address of the Host Europe server. I simply want to have my wordpress site (jochenhung.wordpress.com) come up under the domain jochenhung.de…
Thank you for your help!
Jochen -
Hi there,
The zone file which was created for your domain (and which is required for you to be able to point your domain towards us) can take a little while to propagate throughout the Internet. I’ve verified that the zone file is set correctly though, so you should be able to change your nameservers soon.
I went and found some documentation at hosteurope.de’s help site which may include where to change the nameservers. My German is truly terrible, however this page:
http://faq.hosteurope.de/index.php?cpid=12785
Seemed to mention something about changing nameservers towards the top.
Regarding the settings which you created: There is some actual trouble. We do not have any way in place to allow for the splitting of the root domain (jochenhung.de) and the “www” (www.jochenhung.de) to go different places. Both the “www” CNAME and the root of the domain “@” are both reserved by us and cannot be edited through the zone file. I’m happy to edit them for you, however one cannot point back towards us and the other towards host europe. They both would have to go the same place.
I apologize for the inconvenience!
-
Wow, thanks a lot for your help! I have been in contact with hosteurope in the meantime and apparently they don’t allow changes in the nameserver. Apparently, the only way would be through setting a CNAME, but I am not sure how to do this. Do I have to do this through hosteurope?
I would be very grateful if you could edit my dns settings, I’m sure I made some horrible mistakes there.Best,
Jochen -
Hi there,
Our Domain Mapping services will only work if the domain name’s nameservers have been pointed towards our servers. Setting a CNAME will not work correctly for your root domain.
If you’d like, you can set up a subdomain for your site, such as blog.jochenhung.de and set up a CNAME for that which points to weimarstudies.wordpress.com (you would need to create this CNAME within your hosteurope control panel).
If you’d like to use a subdomain rather than the root domain, let me know and I will set it up for you on this end!
-
Hi, thanks for your suggestions. I don’t want my two wordpress sites to be connected, could the subdomain also point to jochenhung.wordpress.com? Or even better: could I create a CNAME for jochenhung.wordpress.com within my hosteurope control panel, so that all traffic for jochenhung.de goes to jochenhung.wordpress.com? Sorry for all these questions, I’m not really familiar with all of this..
If that all doesn’t work, do you know if it is possible to just close my account with a provider such as hosteurope and take my domainname to wordpress?
Thanks again,
Jochen -
Hi there!
I apologize! I mis-typed when I put in weimarstudies. You can absolutely point “blog.jochenhung.de” and point it towards “jochenhung.wordpress.com.”
There is no way for you to create a CNAME for just the route of “jochenhung.de” and have all traffic come here. The root of your domain (the @ record) requires that it be an IP address, which we do not provide. So you could only point the “www”, and the way our systems are set up would cause errors if you tried it that way.
Your final suggestion, to close your account with hosteurope and transfer your domains, you are welcome to do, however you will need to transfer them to a different company than WordPress.com. We are unable to accept domain transfers. There are however a vast array of companies which work wonderfully as domain registrars which you may want to consider.
This article is a little old, but here is an independent article on the five best domain name registrars which you might want to consider:
http://lifehacker.com/5683682/five-best-domain-name-registrars
-
Ah, thanks for clarifying! I think it might be easiest to transfer my domain to another provider who allows changes in the nameserver. I’ll have a look at that article. Is there anything else I have to do apart from updating the nameservers once I have changed providers?
-
Hiya!
No, there wouldn’t be, but keep in mind that even once you’ve pointed your nameservers at us, you wouldn’t be able to point the A record at us and the www back at hosteurope, as our system doesn’t allow it.
As long as you’re OK with that, then you’re good to go! :)
-
I’m sorry, I don’t really know what that means. Will I be able to use the domain http://www.jochenhung.de for my wordpress blog (jochenhung.wordpress.com) after I changed to a host that allows changing of the nameservers?
-
Oh yes, absolutely! I apologize for not being clear. You just at one point mentioned that you wanted “http://www.jochenhung.de” to point to your old servers and “http://jochenhung.de” to point to us.
That is not possible. It has to be both that are pointing at us. As long as you’re OK with that, then this will work great!
-
No, I want both to point to my WordPress site. Sorry if I my earlier remarks didn’t make sense, I got a bit confused. Thank you by the way for your great support! It has been a tremendous help.
I’ll transfer my domain now. Do I have to delete the problematic dns entries I made earlier?
-
Hi there!
You won’t need to change your existing nameservers once you transfer your domain to another host.
You would need to purchase a domain mapping upgrade for each domain, and change the nameservers to the WordPress.com ones you mentioned earlier.
Once the DNS changes update, you can choose your primary domain by going to Store -> Domains in your site’s dashboard. All other domains will automatically redirect to the primary domain.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions or if you run into any problems.
-
Sorry, I don’t understand this:
You won’t need to change your existing nameservers … .
You would need to purchase a domain mapping upgrade for each domain, and change the nameservers … .
Do I change the nameservers or not? I have already purchased a domain mapping upgrade and wanted to change the nameservers at my old registrar. It didn’t work, so I am in the process of transferring the domain to another host. As soon as this is done I thought I had to change to the WordPress nameservers…?
-
Moving the domain to another registrar will reset the nameservers to the new registrar automatically – you do not need to change them at all with your current registrar before you transfer the domain.
After you transfer the domain to the new registrar, then you will need to change the nameservers to point to WordPress.com.
Does that make sense?
Also, for the domain to work with your WordPress.com site, you will need to purchase a domain mapping upgrade for *each* domain you want to use with your site.
I hope that clarifies things. Let me know if you still have questions.
-
Thanks, it wasn’t possible to change the nameservers with my old registrar (that’s why I’m transferring to a new one), so I didn’t change anything there.
The only thing I’m unsure about are the dns entries I have to make after I changed the nameservers. I put in something there already, but your colleague said they were incorrect. -
The only things you will need to do is update the nameservers with your new registrar to point to WordPress.com and purchase the domain mapping upgrade.
You will not need to do any custom DNS entries other than the nameserver change. Here are the values again for your reference:
NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
NS2.WORDPRESS.COM
NS3.WORDPRESS.COMLet me know if you still have questions.
-
Great, thanks a lot!
Just one last question: Do I have to delete the problematic dns entries I made earlier? -
- The topic ‘Mapping an existing domain to wordpress blog’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 