Transfer domain without outage?

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  dondehoff · Member · Nov 10, 2009 at 9:48 pm

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  I have an existing website with my own domain name, and I would like to configure this domain to resolve to a WordPress.com blog. The instructions say that I must point my domain name to WordPress.com nameservers BEFORE I can purchase the upgrade to allow my domain name to point to my WordPress.com blog. Unless I am missing something, once the nameserver change took place, my website would be down until I purchased the upgrade. Is there any way to do this without having an outage for my site?

  Thank you.

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

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  thesacredpath · Member · Nov 10, 2009 at 9:58 pm

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  Once the nameserver change is done, it is going to take 24-72 hours for the nameserver change to make its way through the internet DNS system. That is not something that is in anyone’s control. Sometimes it happens virtually immediately (24 hours or less), but I’ve personally seen several instances where it took 72 before it stabilized. It just depends on how many new domains have been registered or transferred during the time you do it.

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  dondehoff · Member · Nov 11, 2009 at 6:33 pm

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  I certainly understand that between the time I submit the change and when the change actually takes effect could be 24-72 hours. My problem is that I cannot tell WordPress.com’s name servers ahead of time what to do with requests for my domain name. Once the change DOES take effect, my domain name will be resolving to a nameserver that doesn’t know how to handle it which will result in requests to my domain not working. Only after the requests are being sent to WordPress.com and resulting in a broken site, will I be able to purchase the upgrade and link that domain name to my blog. Normally when you point a domain to a new nameserver, you configure that nameserver ahead of time so it knows what to do with requests for that domain when they start coming in. The WordPress.com process seems backwards.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Nov 11, 2009 at 8:29 pm

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  You just have to keep checking back. I would try at about 4 hours, and then again at 8. Typically wordpress will pick up the change before the rest of the web will. I’m not sure how they do that, but they do. The minute wordpress discovers the change, then you can finish the domain mapping and then your blog will be mapped.