Transferring a purchased WordPress.com domain to wordpress.org in the future
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I have currently set up a blog and I am quite happy with the service I’m getting through wordpress.com at the moment. I like being able to view stats to see where people have came from, how many have visited as well as having the community aspect of wp.com. The only gripe I have at the minute is having wordpress.com in my Blog URL. I’d like to purchase a domain name to get rid of it. I’d also like to transfer to WordPress.org in the future, hopefully after building a substantial audience and out growing WordPress.com.
What i’d like to know is if I were to purchase and register a domain through wordpress.com and use that domain on my current wordpress.com site. In the future when I come to transfer my Blog to wordpress.org would I be able to do this easily, or would there be any problems – also what I don’t want is to buy a domain now through wordpress.com and six month down the line decide I want to expand to wordpress.org and find out I can’t use the same domain name I purchased through wordpress.com month previously and then in turn have to create a new domain or set up a total new blog and lose all my previous work. Just wanted to get a solid answer on this before I take the leap into buying my domain or not.
Hope some one can help?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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What i’d like to know is if I were to purchase and register a domain through wordpress.com and use that domain on my current wordpress.com site. In the future when I come to transfer my Blog to wordpress.org would I be able to do this easily,
Yes is the answer.
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Here’s a summary of the steps you need to take to move your content and your domain mapping.
WordPress.com and WordPress.org are completely separate.
http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/1. Hire a web host http://wordpress.org/hosting/ and purchase a domain.
2. Set up a WordPress.org install and equip it with a theme and plugins.
http://wordpress.org/themes/
http://wordpress.org/plugins/3. To move your content you need to create an XML export file of your content. It will not include the theme and widgets as they cannot be exported. Export your content out of your WordPress.com blog http://en.support.wordpress.com/export/ and import it into the install.
4. WordPress.com is the top level domain here and all blogs hosted by WordPress.com are on .wordpress.com sub-domains.
(a) Purchase a site redirect upgrade from wordpress.com
http://en.support.wordpress.com/site-redirect/(b) Or if you have domain mapping then see here http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/move-domain/#change-name-servers-to-point-the-domain-outside-of-wordpress-com and here http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/move-domain/
5. Transfer subscribers. See http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/moving-your-subscribers/
6. Set your wordpress.com blog visibility to private. To change blog visibility to private go to > Settings > Reading scroll to Blog Visibility and choose option 3 . See the guide here http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/
Alternatively you can purchase a Guided Transfer and Staff will do the move and set up for you http://en.support.wordpress.com/guided-transfer/
WordPress.com and WordPress.org have different log-ins and run different versions of themes with same names. If you don’t have a username account at WordPress.ORG click http://wordpress.org/support/ and register one on the top right hand corner of the page that opens, so you can post to the support forums there and receive advice from WordPress.ORG bloggers.
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That’s fantastic to hear.
Also, thanks for taking all the time to provide the information above. You’ve helped me out a lot.
So I can just register my domain through this link:
https://wordpress.com/domains/then in the future I can refer back to this post when I need to transfer my wordpress.com site with purchased domain to a wordpress.org site?
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Hi again,
If you want to purchase domain mapping upgrade then read and act on what follows.In order to map to a domain one must have an underlying .wordpress.com subdomain blog to map from, and the domain name you desire must be available for purchase, or you must already own the domain URL.
You must be logged in as Admin http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#administrator under the exact same username account that registered the blog to access the blog’s dashboard at > Store > My Upgrades to purchase upgrades for the blog.
See here if you do not own a domain http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/
See here for mapping an existing domain that you already own http://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/map-existing-domain/
if you already have a website you don’t want to affect, and you want to add a blog to it under a subdomain (for example, blog.yourgroovydomain.com) see here http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-subdomain/
After you do the primary blog set up it can take between 24 – 72 hours for domain name propagation to take place throughout the internet. You can view the DNS changes here > http://www.whatsmydns.net/ What’s important during that stage is to be patient.
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Sorry but I’m really not that technical, I really appreciate the help but just don’t really understand most of it. I just want the top and bottom of things at the minute.
If I purchased the domain through here:
https://wordpress.com/domains/and registered a my blog name as whatrhinosaid.com rather than whatrhinosaid.wordpress.com. Could I then use that domain and easily be able to transfer to wordpress.org later down the line?
Also do you know if I did transfer would I still be able to access the wordpress ‘Reader’ community and view my blog stats?
Thanks again!!!
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Could I then use that domain and easily be able to transfer to wordpress.org later down the line?
Yes and I already answered that above.
Also do you know if I did transfer would I still be able to access the wordpress ‘Reader’ community and view my blog stats?
Yes you will still be able to access the Reader but when you move to self hosting your blog posts will NOT automatically appear on the WordPress.COM categories and tags pages because it will no longer be hosted by WordPress.COM.
When you move to self hosting your install and activate Jetpack plugin from http://jetapack.me on your WordPress.ORG site, and Staff will move your stats for you after you request that in a forum thread here.
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Great stuff. Sorry, I just don’t want to get confused ha. But you’ve really helped.
I’ve just noticed as well if I try to register through
https://wordpress.com/domains/Im provided with a question that asks
add a custom email
– No thanks, I don’t need email with this domain or will just use email forwarding.
– Yes! Add Google Apps for £33.00/user per year.
What is google apps, and will I benefit from adding them and adding a custom email?
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