Domain Registration and Mapping
It’s here: you can now use your own custom domain with your WordPress.com blog. For example, if your blog was currently at example.wordpress.com you could buy example.com from us and we would automatically move your blog over and redirect all your links and readers to the new domain.
How does this work? Well to get started go to Options > Domains. You can enter the domain you want in the box at the top.
If the domain isn’t registered, it will ask you for some information and then register it for you, and add domain mapping, for $15/yr.
If you already own a domain you registered somewhere else, you can map it for $10/yr. The next screen will tell you how to change the DNS nameservers on your domain to point to WordPress, and once you do that your domain should be live within a few hours.
That’s it!
This is pretty new, and somewhat technical functionality. If you have any questions at all don’t hesitate to contact support using the feedback tab at the top-right of your dashboard, and one of the team will get back to you immediately. Congrats to Andy for his great work on this oft-requested feature.
- October 24, 2006
- Domains, Features, New Features, WordPress.com
WordPress.com News 
Alright, getting 10 bucks out and doing this now!
LikeLike
super du-awesome! I wanna I wanna this for christmas!
LikeLike
Pretty fancy, Andy. I can see this being a pretty big feature. I started a WP.com blog so I could blog about WordPress, so it doesn’t really make sense to me. I like having “wordpress” in my blog’s URL!
LikeLike
Great job guys! Question: could you buy and map to something other than “example.com”, or is it limited to the wordpress.com subdomain currently being used?
LikeLike
Ummm…What about International users? PayPal I suppose 😐
LikeLike
I would do this if I had the means to.
LikeLike
Is there a way to pay for that which does NOT involve credit cards or Paypal (which need a credit card for you to register)? Cuz some of us bloggers are not, like, up on that credit card thing…
LikeLike
The other post mentioned that some random blogs will be given new domains from wordpress… is that happening? Will I get it 🙂
LikeLike
Awesome feature.. been waiting for this =p
LikeLike
Great, I will do it!
LikeLike
This is my graceland sir.
LikeLike
Exactly what are the advantages of having your own domain? Will your blog be more search engine friendly?
I don’t really understand …. yes I am having a dumb moment!
V
LikeLike
Sankar, it’s happening. I got the first one (and don’t I feel special!).
LikeLike
Gr8.. Thanks..
I’m not able to access this URL “https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr”.. How should i do???
LikeLike
Cool.. Thanks.
LikeLike
I don’t own a domain anymore but if I decide to in the future it will be here. Thx!
LikeLike
Cool. What about our subscribers? Does their RSS sub get lost for them when we make this move or is some sort of redirect feasible?
LikeLike
YDS, good question. Your WordPress domain (“example.wordpress.com”) can be completely different than the domain you map it to (“crazypants.invalid”).
LikeLike
Hey guys! This is great! 🙂 But I’ll keep my .wordpress.com domain =) I like it!
LikeLike
livingjourney, there is no technical advantages. It is an image thang.
Also, horror-upon-horror, if you ever wanted to leave WordPress.com, you would not have to change the URL everyone already knows your blog as.
LikeLike
Gail Ann Williams, Andy has worked long and long 😉 so the important details like RSS subscriptions keep on truckin if choose to domain map.
LikeLike
This is so cool.
LikeLike
why can’t we have domain.info??
LikeLike
What happens with services where we have registered the worpress.com URL or with our (shudder) Google page rank?
I assume we need to re-register and lose PR, but just wanted to check what the implications are.
LikeLike
0nkulis: we are having some issues with domains outside of .com .net and .org. You will be able to map any domain soon; we aren’t going to support registering them here, but you can still use them if you register them with another registrar.
LikeLike
Bravo, WordPress Domain Registration and Mapping a reality…Thanks:-)
LikeLike
Question about Andy’s comment above. I’ve got a .co.uk domain registered elsewhere. Can I map my domain across now?
LikeLike
Some people have reported a custom domain getting more search engine referrals than a wordpress.com subdomain, but honestly I think they should be about the same.
LikeLike
With regards to the earlier comment about Google Pagerank, it will probably go down for a couple of weeks, but since we have the redirect it will come back. Also all of Google’s links to your old site will work just fine when people click them.
LikeLike
Great news today! Although I think I will keep my wordpress “tail”. It is much cooler this way 😉
LikeLike
Great work – very impressed! Only issue is it seems that there’s an issue around logging in – I no longer get the ‘bar’ across the top of the screen using my new domain name (which was working within minutes of ordering!), I click ‘Login’ and am taken straight to the admin panel – so I’m clearly logged in already, it seems the admin panel still uses the .wordpress.com address, so I wonder whether this is what’s causing the conflict…
Other than that tremendous – decent price for the domain name too, given that you’re doing the directing too!
LikeLike
Thanks Andy, I allready registrated onkulis.com and 0nkulis.com from wp… thanks for great service…
LikeLike
Awesome! Just got myself one.. 😀
LikeLike
hey wordpress¡
this new feature rox all our sox¡
i wanted to ask u one favour..
wordpress bloggers cannot use anything to show “online” visitors..
eg: 46 online
i think this would be a really wonderful enhancement to all the sexy ywordpress sidebars, something to think about?
LikeLike
how about css. is it included in that price
LikeLike
Yeehaa! I’ll be doing this. A great feature for a great price.
Question: will changing to a new domain name mess up our Google search hits, or our Google rank? For some reason I’ve got a Google rank of “5” right now, which I can only guess is because my blog is associated with WordPress. Once I switch to a new domain name, I lose all those positive associations and my Google hits drop, yes?
LikeLike
I keep trying to register the domain i want but it keeps saying “something went wrong, contact support” what do I do? who is this support, how do I contact them?
LikeLike
Matt, if we map it to our domain I assume we can still access it from the wordpress.com url (foo.wordpress.com)?
LikeLike
i don’t understand
LikeLike
Now this is simply AWESOME. Guess I will buy soon 2 domains from you guys. Just need to verify what are the payment options, as I am in Moscow.
LikeLike
Very impressive!!! I’m doing this!
LikeLike
You made my day!!! Thank you!
LikeLike
I have a site that’s hosted elsewhere. I can forward this to my site? So it will be my domain name without the wordpress.com at the end?
Tx,
Henrietta
LikeLike
If I register a domain through WordPress, whose name will it be in? Will there be difficulties if I ever want to move the domain elsewhere?
LikeLike
I might do this ince I’ve owned a domain for about 7 years… I’m a bit concerned about what would happen if I decide to stop mapping… what would happen to all the links? Would they just end up defunct?
LikeLike
^^ This is what I want to know before taking the plunge.
LikeLike
You guys rock, I’ve set mine up and it works perfectly! thanks again for making such a great service even better 🙂
LikeLike
Is there a guide more complete than this post?
I mean, something that explains in more words…
LikeLike
Yay! http://www.beatsentropy.com
Paypal can work with debit cards as well.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Ok, you can get full registration information based on the domain here
http://who.securepaynet.net/whoischeck.aspx?Domain=BEATSENTROPY.COM&prog_id=391143
LikeLike
The domains are registered in your name with the details you give, and if you ever want to move it elsewhere you are completely free to!
Capt, you can contact support by using the “feedback” link in the top right of every dashboard page.
the forester, like I said in my earlier comment, your old domain will redirect to the new one so all your pagerank and links and visitors will transfer to the new domain over time.
Rushi, you can still go to foo.wordpress.com, it’ll just redirect you to your new name. 🙂 Your dashboard will always be on WordPress.com, so that way we can secure your passwords with SSL.
LikeLike
Made the change today, the transition is seamless. Excellent work. Another reason among many to love WordPress.
LikeLike
kewl.
LikeLike
It’s working really good! Thanks!
LikeLike
I’ve been waiting for this feature, thanks!.
LikeLike
woohoo!
LikeLike
Баясгалан, customizing CSS is still a separate upgrade.
LikeLike
My blog got deleted once, because I had links to my companys home page and some ads in it. Is it ok to display ads, when I use my own domain?
LikeLike
Tauno, the same ToS apply, so today that still means ads are not allowed.
LikeLike
Sounds really neato, I think a little more documentation is needed here, cause I’d like to have a bit more knowledge about this before I plunge on in!
LikeLike
I grabbed a domain via your new system earlier today, and it worked flawlessly (as usual).
Yet again, awesome work. You folks really do rock.
LikeLike
What is exactly is mapping?
LikeLike
I just opened 2 new blogs that I’m not ready to start using now, just so I could buy the new domain names that I want to have.
It was pretty smooth. After purchase, you might want to add a line to the directions indicating how long people should expect to wait before it’s working (only a few minutes; but it doesn’t hurt to know that before trying it).
Also, on the new domains, I don’t have the menu bar on the top of the page for dashboards, new posts, etc. I need to go to login to reach the dashboard, and I don’t see anyplace with a menu of all my dashboards. Not a big deal.
LikeLike
hmmmm should i? shouldnt i?
LikeLike
Yippee! Finally no need to go host hunting if I want my own domain name! Add another added upgrade to customize your blog and I’ll convert!
LikeLike
I purchased iowaboyblog.com today and it redirected within moments. The process was flawless and fast. However the ‘www’iowaboyblog.com isn’t working. I noticed, while visiting other sites who purchased and redirected domains today, that their sites are redirecting to example.com even when I use the ‘www’ prefix. How can I get this ‘www’ redirect to work on my site?
LikeLike
Update: I should have waited for the propagation to complete before asking. My ‘www’ redirect is working now. Thanks WP team for making the redirect process so easy.
LikeLike
Like others have said, I am quite proud of having wordpress.com in my domain so I think I’ll leave it! But nice feature anyway.
LikeLike
Excelente!, sin embargo estoy de acuerdo con Mark Jaquith: no cambio por nada el “.wordpress.com” de mi blog, no tienen idea lo mucho que algunos apreciamos y valoramos esta palabra en nuestro blog. De todas maneras me parece una buena opción para muchos. Felicitaciones.
LikeLike
I’m on it! Thanks, WordPress Wizards!
LikeLike
Thanks! I’m so excited!
LikeLike
I got a domain via your new system last night and it went excellently smooth! Thanks for the hard work and the great feature!!!
LikeLike
Even though it costs much more, I’d rather pay for you guys to host than download WordPress onto my server because when it comes to anything programming, I’m stuck. I have another domain which I’ll be hooking to my own server soon, (a friend will be helping me), but that is going to be for my work and I want this to be something completely separate and unrelated. Hehehe, and having a pseudonym is cooler.
Oh, and to everyone else, I’d rather have my own username than a subdomain…:P
LikeLike
WordPress.com Now Does Domains
Things just keep getting better for WordPress.com users. Back in August, the WordPress crew unveiled the custom CSS upgrade for WordPress.com bloggers. Now, WordPress.com users may use their own domain or register a new one to pair with their blog. Th…
LikeLike
cool.. .
LikeLike