Will my domain name become available?

  • Unknown's avatar
    amacrobertphoto · Member ·

    I’m switching from a wordpress premium plan to web hosting & domain registration elsewhere, which doesn’t have the ability to transfers domains from wordpress.com. So I cancelled my wordpress premium plan and removed the domain name, with the expectation that I would re-register the domain name on the new registrar quickly before anyone else registered it.

    The domain name is still unavailable, and when I go to it I get an error message: ‘Warning! Domain mapping upgrade for this domain not found. Please log in and go to the Domains Upgrades page of your blog to use this domain.’

    Will wordpress.com hang onto this domain indefinitely? Will they release it and make it available for me to register elsewhere? How long does this take?

    Thank you!

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

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    When a domain is cancelled it goes through a holding period of a few days at the registrar, followed by a redemption period of several weeks. During redemption the registrar can try to sell it at private auction and they only release it if no one bids on it during this phase. So, actually you should only cancel a domain if you no longer want to use it at all.

    Note that it’s not us who are holding onto the domain, but our registrar, and we have no control over this.

    Your best option to keep the domain is if we email them and ask them to revert the cancellation and restore it to our account. Then you can use it with a site hosted somewhere else by changing the name servers or the IP address.

    Let me know if you want to try and undo the cancellation, or if you’re going to take the risk to wait for it to become available again in a few weeks.

  • Unknown's avatar
    amacrobertphoto · Member ·

    Hi kokkieh,

    Thank you for the explanation. Can you please try to undo the cancellation? The domain name in question is andrewmacrobert.com

    Thank you!

    Andrew

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    I have emailed our registrar. I’ll let you know once I hear back from them. This could take a couple of days.

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Good news: Our registrar has restored your domain and it is active again on your account. You should now be able to point it to the host of your choice by following the instructions here:
    Move Your Domain to Another Host

    Let me know if you need any more help with this.

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