Theme 'Add New' Option on .wordpress.com and Advertisement

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  bannabannabanna · Member · Oct 10, 2015 at 5:37 am

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  Hi,

  I have a website that uses free wordpress theme – ‘Theme-A’ is hosted on a 3rd party Ubuntu hosting service provider. I have created a new wordpress.com account. I have exported the content of my existing site through wordpress Dashboard Export option. On my wordpress.com account I have imported this dump.

  At present the two sites doesn’t look as-is, which is obvious because the theme used is wordpress.com is different. Content between the two sites are 90% same, except Theme-A specific pages/sliding pictures and icon arrangement
  I want to use my same old theme – ‘Theme-A’. I have the zip of Theme-A but there is no option of ‘Add New’ theme in wordpress.com. My question is

  1. Will wordpress.com allow me to upload the Theme-A . Is it what wordpress calls ‘Custom Design’ -$30/year?
  2. Once I get the above upgrade done, will the ‘Add new’ option pop-up in Appearances-> Theme-> Add New and I will be able to install Theme-A? Also will I be able to add my old plug-ins and contact forms etc?
  3. No Ads – $30/year. Where does wordpress.com show its ads? Is it the ‘XYZ Theme.Blog at WordPress.com’ written at the bottom part of the website or something else? Since I don’t see any ads on my .wordpress.com site. This will help me decide how annoying are these ads and if I should pay these extra $30 every year to get rid of ads.

  PS: I will also be doing the domain transfer by using wordpress mapping option $13/year to use my existing domain as-is (removing .wordpress.com).

  Details:
  Existing website: http://www.maureensweddinggowns.com
  Existing Hosting: Digital Ocean
  Theme-A: Interstellar
  .wordpress website: http://www.maureensweddinggowns.wordpress.com

  Thanks for the help

  -Maureen

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

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  justjennifer · Member · Oct 10, 2015 at 7:22 am

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  1. No upgrade on WordPress.com will allow you to upload a 3rd party theme. The Custom Design upgrade, which is part of the Premium or Business bundles, allows you to use CSS and some custom tools to change the appearance of any of the existing 350+ themes found here https://theme.wordpress.com/ Interstellar is not one of them.

  2. No and No. See my above answer about themes. Plugins cannot be installed on WordPress.com. No upgrade here changes that (other than the Enterprise/VIP tiers which costs thousands of dollars a year for hosting and even they are restricted to a limited set of additional plugins). Here’s a list of the current plugins integrated on WPcom https://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/

  3. WordPress.com shows ads generally to logged out users and people arriving via search engine returns at the bottom of the post they land on. The No Ads upgrade is part of the Premium and Business bundle. Additionally, WPcom users cannot show their own ads on their sites. See here for more information: https://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/

  Unless you’ve been maintaining a paid upgrade on your WordPress.com website since before September 2014, your upgrade choices are now either the Premium or Business bundles. You can learn more about those by clicking on the “Learn More” links on this page https://store.wordpress.com/

  PS If your custom domain is registered elsewhere, you will need to maintain it with your current registrar in order to use domain mapping, which is about the only standalone upgrade that you can purchase and you must renew it annually. This is separate to renewing your domain name with your current registrar.

  Let us know if you need more information on any of that.